Amaury Séchet: Part 1

1. The decision about the IFP can be a personal decision because Bitcoin is permissionless. Anyone can fork the network and seek others to follow them. You can't stop anyone from doing that. If you can, then Bitcoin is broken.

2. Why not 1%? Because Amaury chooses 8%. See 1. You seem to fail to understand that Bitcoin is all about being able to voluntarily follow or unfollow a chain. Just cuz u don't like the IFP doesn't mean those of us that do like it shouldn't be allowed to do it.

3. I don't care what the majority thinks. The majority also thinks 1MB blocks are better. I disagreed so I voluntarily sold my BTC for BCH. You are free to sell your BCHabc for BCHn.

Well if you would have cared what the majority thinks, then you would have been able to keep more BTC to buy more BCH now.

The system of bitcoin is built for the majority and if you want to knock your head against the wall despite the fact that is is economically a bad decision, then you will have to pay a lot for your stubbornness.

By your own logic, you should still be following BTC. Bitcoin Cash wouldn't exist if you took your own advice.

So you avoid answering any question but make up your own fantasy world statement? Are you at all interested in finding a proper solution or do you just want to make propaganda here so that you get some of the IFP money as ABC promoter?

Believe me I’m not writing these articles to get money. If i wanted easy money I’d be writing against abc to make big tips from Marc or roger. My sport for abc is purely because i believe in what they’re doing nothing else. I have been supporting them well before any of this ifp drama. I have been as passionate a bch supporter as anyone since 2017.

Still you avoid taking on that offer of a fruitful dialogue with reasonable questions. Anyway thanks for expressing that you are seeing this like a sport and fanboy behaviour, which to many of us is much more serious than that.

Being a fanboy of anyone makes no sense in bitcoin as that does not lead to the best results, we must be flexible in all decision making and everyone can make mistakes even the biggest idols, that might be the reason why you are not seeing the massive destructive effect the IFP would have on the economics of BCH.

This issue is not a personal issue, it is a technical issue, as I outlined in the first phrase of my initial comment.

If you want to try to understand the perspective of the other party which has good reasons to neglect the IFP proposal, then you must start to put yourself in their shoes and at least try to understand their reasoning and with these questions that I offered you above you could have a start into a real investigation.

Sport was a typo. It was supposed to be support. And i did address your comment. I don’t agree. The beauty of Bitcoin Cash is everyone is free to do their own thing.

I was asking question, there was nothing to agree on. I was offering a base for a fruitful conversation but you neglect any reasonable dialogue as all you are doing is being a fanboy who can not stand any critics about his idol, that idol could be Amaury or your own ego.

I responded to your original comment.

Thanks for reading Jstodd. We'll see in a month how this all plays out.

How do you know how the funds will be distributed in the end? Who will have control about it? Who is holding the wallet keys? You are making up an assumption and tell others that this would be truth, but you yourself can not assure that it will happen the way you believe it to happen.

True, the team that created and brought BCH this far could go evil. It is just much less likely than the assumptions stated as facts by the opposition. There is no evidence for the claims of imminent theft many keep repeating. Pretending a very unlikely possibility is going to happen is classic troll-army social-engineering argument strategy. This community can usually see through the deception.

Beyond them having to become evil, it would be stupid to steal the funds instead of using them to make BCH great so their holding get more valuable. Also, the miners would stop mining their fork if they did it.

The wallet key holder is unimportant unless that person or team goes evil and stupid. It is an income stream, one theft and it stops. The "one address" argument is dumb and also commonly "fallen for" on this sub..

True, the team that created and brought BCH this far could go evil. It is just much less likely than the assumptions stated as facts by the opposition.

Why are you so convinced it is much less likely when we've seen it occur historically? Not only are there potential behind-the-scenes events that we aren't aware of, the fact of the matter is that a lot of the original BTC development team was corrupted. If that isn't reason enough to believe a similar event could be likely, then what about the chain of events leading here? An IFP was proposed and voted against, so then a new "IFP" was mandated even as other more decentralized governance options were being explored. Subsequently, pseduo-governance that may or may not be centralized was tacked on top of this new "IFP." How is that not fishy? I'm not saying every anti-IFP or anti-ABC argument and/or concern holds water, but that doesn't mean they are all without merit.

This community can usually see through the deception.

You can usually see through the deception. What makes you so sure it's the community that is wrong this time?

What makes you so sure it's the community that is wrong this time?

Wrong about ABC being evil thieves who do not care about the BCH/Bitcoin dream? I am not positive they are mistaken. No one can be. The chances are very slim for many reasons I do not feel like listing here at the moment as it is a big list. The real evidence they are now corrupt is near zero. The flawed-logic arguments (based on an assumption of guaranteed corruption) created by the troll army and now used by many in the community are basically dishonest. We used to be the good guys who did not need to resort to such tactics.

I'm more in the "power corrupts" and "money corrupts" crowd than the "ABC is evil" crowd. As such, my concern is that ABC will eventually be able and we won't be able to undo the IFP at that point even if it was a good and effective idea to begin with. There is also an "ABC is incompetent and/or has decision problems" crowd that has valid points. Arguably, neither of us can be sure whether or not the "ABC is evil" crowd is actually part of the community or a troll-army, but to the extent that they are a troll-army, their intent could just as likely be to keep ABC on top by making the community look flawed (even if that means the community is seeing through them and they are failing). In this sense, we have to ignore the noise and consider what we do know. I think it's safe to say you and I both try to do that but with different outcomes.

Your reply sounds like it was written by social engineering firms to me. Pretending you are not assuming ABC is corrupt as the basis of your arguments by saying they may be good, but 4% will make them corrupt if they get it is very likely to be untrue just like the claim they are corrupt now. It let's you continue to argue they will be corrupt in the future (without evidence) so you can make the same flawed arguments while agreeing they are probably not corrupt now.

If ABC was corrupt or incompetent we would know that already. Yes, the anti-ABC forces do have some good points, but pretending that means ABC is corrupt or incompetent is not one of them. Saying that the way you did is a very professional slandering-strategy the troll army uses.

Pretending the anti-ABC crowd is either troll army OR community is a distraction or deception. Many of both are on the anti-ABC bandwagon these days. The troll army is anti-ABC because that is the best way to hurt BCH today. After the fork they will attack whichever coin they are most concerned will be able to fulfill the real Bitcoin dream they oppose. They are not trying to keep ABC on top. That suggestion seems to be just stupid or dishonest. I doubt you or your writing team are stupid.

I think I am trying to see through your team's noise. Pretending we both mean well is classic social engineering.

I appreciate you suggesting that I could have a writing team. I have a hard time finding the word I actually want to use more often than not, and I don't think my points are that well articulated. Nonetheless, since you're back to throwing accusations at me, I will point out that while I'm not well versed in classic social engineering, I have certainly noticed how quickly pro-ABC people seem to throw blame that perfectly matches their behavior. I didn't notice similar behavior during the BTC-BCH split or the BCH-BSV split. In fact, from my vantage point, prior to this particular split, such behavior seemed to be exclusive to politics.

Pretending to be weak-skilled and slightly inept and not seeing reality is a group of regular troll strategies as well. Maybe you are just a regular person who missed seeing the long battle BCH has been fighting with the fake Bitcoin's teams. That seems unlikely at this point to me.

I never claimed to be weak-skilled or inept. In fact, I pointed out that I'm not a walking thesaurus and implied that I suspected my use of one would be obvious in my comments that are edited only by myself. Interestingly enough, you did exactly what I pointed out immediately thereafter, again. In any case, you can see my history on bitcointalk.org. I've been around for a long time. I wasn't for sell back then, and I'm not for sell now. It would take a good technical argument to convince me ABC has any merit, and I haven 't seen one. That isn't to say BCHN has more merit, but at the end of the day, I've seen plenty of bureaucracy, which is exactly what ABC will be creating with their "IFP." I've also seen open source at its best without built-in or corporate funding and seen corporations really botch open source for their own gain. That doesn't mean I've seen everything, but it certainly informs my opinions (and to be clear, IMO, ABC will become a corporation with a successful "IFP").

ABC may already be a corporation. That would not make them anti-Bitcoin like Blockstream. Over-simplifying the issues and using the buzzwords of the troll army attackers out to harm BCH makes you look bought. Some say the troll army controls many accounts from bitcointalk.org. I believe that site is anti-Bitcoin controlled now like r/Bitcoin. Regardless, many here now support the troll army arguments so you should continue to get plenty of support here. Don't worry about my crying wolf every day when almost no one listens to me anymore.

bitcointalk.org is most certainly controlled like r/bitcoin and that was obvious to me before I even knew r/bitcoin was a thing. I haven't posted to that forum in years in spite of the fact that they didn't ever censor me (I could probably find a post that still stands where I call out their censorship if I were motivated to do so). TBH, I walked away from Bitcoin because it was obviously infiltrated, and I only held onto BTC where I had 0 cost basis as a free lottery ticket. I didn't really get excited again until BCH was a thing (the same thing that BTC was supposed to be), and I was finally holding what I believed in again because of the fork. At this point, ABC has acknowledged that there will be two chains and even decided to provide a client for both chains. I don't need to trust ABC, but I think that decision gives them plenty of space to prove whatever they need to prove.

I'm not saying every anti-IFP or anti-ABC argument and/or concern holds water, but that doesn't mean they are all without merit.

I never suggested "they are all without merit", I agree with many of the complaints and support building and testing a better team to do the work ABC has been doing before we hand over the project to them.

My point was that assuming as fact that ABC has gone evil and would steal the development funds instead of using them to pay developers for doing valuable work is flawed-logic reasoning. The social engineering firms created these flawed arguments and many want to believe them, but they are most likely false. Your argument and theirs is that it is possible, so we should continue to argue it as if it were guaranteed truth.

Your evidence is also just guesses and reliance on the possibility it could happen and that such things have happened before. And, yes BTC developers were corrupted by paying them to do bad things. That could be BCHN's path since we do not know what deep pockets are behind their effort to block BCH developer funding. Assuming that example applies to ABC is just more most-likely-false assumptions of evil intent by ABC towards the Bitcoin dream.

Even if ABC hasn't gone evil, they seem drunk with perceived power that shouldn't have existed for a second time to begin with. Generally, in the interest of not being scammed, we can only use telltale signs as evidence, and we must effectively guess that something is a scam (arguably, those guesses are well-informed by inputs we choose, as may also be the case here for both of us). I know that Blockstream claiming to be Bitcoin was bad, therefore, I feel like ABC claiming to be Bitcoin Cash is bad. If BCHN claims to be Bitcoin Cash in the future, I will also feel like that is bad. If no one else was standing up and trying anything, I might be more willing to give ABC a chance, but with things happening in the wrong order while other more transparent solutions are available, ABC simply can't pass my sniff test.

More good social engineering arguments that sound good but don't hold water. ABC has been running BCH for three years. That is not ideal, but they have not just become drunk with the power that they have had since they created BCH. Your troll army just weaponized the status quo and are pretending it is a new development.

Blockstream and your troll army captured BTC with dishonesty, immoral actions, bribes to developers and social engineering of the community. Pretending there is a commonality with the current situation is complicated and confusing enough to fool people who want to believe it. The truth is harder to see and your team takes advantage of that to make it OH SO EASY to understand with simple falsehoods dressed up as truth.

Whether you guys created or just inspired BCHN it seems it may turn out to be a great Bitcoin someday. I hope so. I hope BCHN's anonymous lead developer is not in your pocket and infiltrating the new team to make sure it fails to achieve the Bitcoin dream in a timely manner. Energy and volunteerism is high during this battle as anti-BCH and pro-BCH forces both want BCHN to look like a great thing for BCH. Hopefully that will lead to something great.

ABC has been running BCH for three years

And for the last three hard forks, there has been contention. In other words, for up to 1.5 out of the 3 years described, ABC has been problematic. There are a lot of complaints that ABC is stonewalling features and the "not-invented-here syndrome" never looked more real than when they suggested Grasberg as a DAA instead of considering ASERT. You're welcome to argue that throwing too much stuff into the base layer could be problematic and the stonewalling is justified, but that is exactly the claim that Blockstream and nChain make. In the meantime, people reading inputs from both sides of the debate can see the strides that are being made outside of ABC, and anyone willing to do a bit more research can see how long who has been involved with Bitcoin in what ways. At the end of the day, at least we can both admit that both sides want to see a successful BCH.

More well designed arguments that sound good but lack the substance they imply. "Contention" created by attackers who then use that contention to pretend it is ABC that was the problem.

ABC has been claiming they could not afford to hire developers to do the features you guys claim they have been "stonewalling". That is why the miners came up with the idea of the IFP to fund the needed developers. ABC has been working to make such features happen as best they could while also doing the code maintenance no other team is doing yet. That has been their complaint: not enough developer time to do all the fun stuff.

BCHN has some great energy for working on the fun stuff for a few months during this battle. It is easy to work on the fun stuff if you let ABC do the time consuming maintenance. Also, ignoring the long-term maintenance costs of diverging from core code is easy if you do not plan to keep up your node's code for over 6 months. Last I heard BCHN was not staffed for a long committed strategy that includes the maintenance work of running a real reference client.

Grasberg was ASERT plus repairs to past errors. The community demanded the past errors not be repaired if it would lead to longer block times (a demand I agreed with). ABC listened to the community and removed those "improvements" to Asert. You may be right about Amaury having "not-invented-here syndrome" and this may have displayed that imperfection of his character, but he did the right thing and you guys still attack him for going with ASERT and pretend doing so supports your position. Very smooth social engineering that many fall for because they want to believe it.

I agree Amaury has problems. I would be fine with replacing him with a better leader that had done the work and proven themselves first. That's not what we have going on. I hope we get lucky and BCHN turns out to be as great as their press releases claim.

At the end of the day, at least we can both admit that both sides want to see a successful BCH.

I hope so. I think many on both sides do want that. The troll army's support of BCHN does worry me though.

ABC has been claiming they could not afford to hire developers to do the features you guys claim they have been "stonewalling".

I'm referring to features that were being coded outside of ABC. They didn't need ABC funding, only commits. Some of them may have been worked on for free, others may have been funded outside of ABC.

Grasberg was ASERT plus repairs to past errors. The community demanded the past errors not be repaired if it would lead to longer block times (a demand I agreed with).

The community disagreed with the suggestion that they were errors. The change would have put BCH's block height behind BTC's block height under the implication that the errors existed even before the DAA. Even the original DAA didn't intend to perfectly adhere to a set schedule over time. There weren't errors, and Amaury specifically stated he doesn't care about the community in regards to the upcoming hardfork. If he doesn't care about the community, then he must have switched to ASERT for some other reason, and the fact that the "IFP" withholding lines up with the amount of BCH that would have been delayed by Grasberg is dubious at best.

The troll army's support of BCHN does worry me though.

You've previously suggested that they will change course and poo poo on BCHN if ABC fails. Others suggest that they will just disappear once the right side wins. Then there are trolls like jstodd who will randomly use the same argument for and against the same implementation and do the same thing to the other implementation with another argument. It's certainly possible that there are some paid individuals and sockpuppets that are working in tandem, but I'm not sure how much merit the term army holds.

You are simply to naive, believing and trusting that everyone is nice and honest especially in these times of world wide media manipulation is absolutely self destructive.

Sometimes you have to choose who to trust if you cannot do it all yourself. I risk trusting ABC as they have proven themselves for years. I clearly am not trusting everyone: https://read.cash/@Big-Bubbler/the-troll-army-still-cant-stop-magic-internet-money-c5ad0453

Well, then you did not understand that bitcoin exists because nobody has to trust into it. That is the main value proposition.

That is the dream and I hope we get there someday. You seem to want to trust the anonymous lead developer of BCHN that created his project when the anti-BCH army was doing all they could to block the serious developer funding system the miners had requested. Then it got 1,000 BCH of dark funding. Pretending you trust them less than I trust ABC would be mistaken or dishonest.

There are many node implementations available that agree to the same protocol, there is just one implementation that works against all the others, that is ABC. So these others do not require trust because they can be replaced.

Only BCHN can replace ABC for most miners at this time. It was created as the protest-copy of ABC. The other nodes are not available as replacements although some may be working towards that goal. If BCHD, for instance, was available for replacing ABC, I would be less concerned. We would not all be watching the miner signalling for BCHN as the new reference implementation candidate if there were other options.

I think you were also created as a protest-copy of something else.