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> The things the lies are based on are getting more absurd by the day. There is absolutely no reason for an exchange to make this ambiguous terms in a supposedly fair futures contract, yet they did.

> I'm not a lawyer, so I don't want to get into an argument about whether that is the correct legal language. IANAL either. But I can still see this clear loophole existing. Are you telling me that you are unable to see it? Why are lawers, **lawyers that, as you admit, even get feedback from you on this**, unable to write down clear terms here? > I also believe that was their intent because I was among many people who gave them feedback after the Unlimited CST that they needed to correct the way those terms work. "Correct" in what sense? > I don't know why they talk about githubs. I assume they don't want Cash becoming the majority chain to be a factor. But that *also* is a lot easier to define through chain state. Put a txn onto cash and say that txn might not show up on the 2x or 1x chain or refer to the hash of a block in the cash chain or whatever ... > And I think they are referring to chainstate by talking about blockchain. But for funny reason nowhere where it matters. > And instead of just referring to one characteristic, they are referring to all the characteristics spelled out in the code. Nice evasion attempt. No, they are not referring *to all the characteristics*, they are referring to a *github* with **people** having commit access. That's not all characteristics of the *code*, that's all characteristics of the Core team suddenly being part of the bet. > The important part is it is as of yesterday, so changing the code in Core or 2X can not make it more likely that your chain would be considered the one chain. No, the important part is **sole and absolute discretion of Bitfinex**. That is a "I am gonna reinterpret this however I want to" wildcard. > But really all this is just an argument about what happens if there is no fork. Does anyone believe that is really a possibility? It seems clear to me the fork is happening now and we will at least initially have two chains. No. Again, if Core (as in those with github access) merges 2x, I lose my tokens. If some 1x minority chain persists *even though* Core github still moved to 2x, I *still* lose my tokens. EDIT: Fix "able unable" to just "unable" above, plus typos.

Few of us doubt that the 2x fork will happen. The $60B question is: what will Core do?

> You guys are making a mountain out of a molehill. > This hard fork is happening. Agreed. But I think lots of people being aware and pointing out the distractions and shenanigans that are being done is helpful still. For example, I'd hate to see 2x-ers being swindled out of their money through the "Core does 2x" loophole.

> Conspiracy theorize all you want... Core is not going to accept 2x. Bitfinex' convoluted contract language is actually a sign that they might. Which you, if you'd have read it, would notice as well.

And if both chains survive each token is redeemable on it's respective chain. I still don't see the bias.

That would make for an enormously interesting study to see the price difference between the two tokens due to differences in the contract language.

What part of my comment lead you to believe that was my stance?

> One is a like a house, and the other is like a property insurance policy. They're not the same thing. You mean the 2x tokens are rather like an insurance policy with odd terms?

> My understanding - and correct me if I'm wrong - is that no matter the outcome of this HF, both coins would continue until the community simply gave up on one. Well, the 1x chain could simply *stop working* (by orphaning, as I wrote above). Then you have an asset that you cannot trade and that stopped existing. I'd argue that something that stops existing is worthless. > With the Bitfinex Token system - you're riding on the outcome the instant 494,784 comes around. If you're wrong you lose everything. But the "lose everything" is not even up to bitfinex so much (in case they'd draft a fair contract) but rather the miners: Will they do the 2x chain? Will they keep doing the 1x chain? Will both coexist? So from that angle, I'd argue that (if it would be a fair contract), whether it goes to zero is outside bitfinex' influence.

You're saying you don't trust Bitfinex to make the discretion? Would you accept the terms if it were a neutral party that had to decide? I have asked legal at Bitfinex why this language was used to make sure I give a technically correct answer. It is my understanding that as long as none of the consensus rules change after 5th October then if Core merges 2x as is there won't be much room for discretion, it will be pretty obvious. Were Bitfinex to renege on that I am sure that would not be without serious cost. I will examine it more. Thanks for bringing it up.

You seem to misunderstand the meaning of this. Since you seem to have forgotten, let me kindly remind you that the Bitcoin Unlimited signalling got very high at some point but never went over 50% so never got activated. Segwit2X have almost 95% signaling which is enough to activate a safe hardfork as per Adam's recommendation.

Core won't merge 2x. I agree though, the terms are not clear about what happens if they do. They should have specified a date for the consensus rule specification that defines BT1.

Have you heard of targeted advertising?

Roko's Basilisk will ***make*** them exist. For the sole reason of torturing them. "Hi gwern, here's a waifu who matches your intellect, wit, covers all your weaknesses, and has this smokin' hot body. Too bad she's too busy getting 500,000,000,000 dust specs thrown into her eyes."

So: > gwern: Given the evidence fed to me, it looks like the statement "The_Real_One is real" is true with probability N%. > > nullc: WTF? Look at the damn GPG keys and the haxored blog posts, probability is close to 0%. > > gwern: That does not change my priors significantly enough, so I stand by what I said. > > The_Real_One: Hi guys! Look at me, I'm amazing! *(makes a fool of himself)* > > nullc: WTF gwern? see? Retract the damn statement! > > The_Real_One: Oh, fuck, some guy just said I'm not real! I'm suing! *(makes a fool of himself and sues)* > > gwern: Given the realities, it would be irrational for me to retract my previous statement since I might get sued. > > nullc: You have no ethics gwern. *(throws egg at gwern's face)* > > gwern: fuck off, it's not your ass that might get sued. > > nullc: You do realize everybody knows I'm Gregory Maxwell but almost nobody knows who you are behind "gwern branwen" right?

All I see here is an enormous amount of back pedaling and a refusal to admit wrong on the basis of legal threat. Essentially you are both a coward and an ostrich. If you see fraud and you do not say fraud you are a fraud. Gwern - It is abundantly clear to me that you are a fraud. By being an enabler of CSW's provably false claims you are contributory to all of the chaos that has ensued. Actually be a man and admit you are wrong. Your refusal to do so is utterly pathetic. There is a 0% chance of successful litigation over a first amendment issue, especially one that is rife with provable fraud on the side of the accuser of libel. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge this and instead cower behind a false threat shows what a little person you are.

>> As far as I know... > Ask midnightmagic then. I have now,and I fully accept on trust his assertion that you have been helpful in non-public ways which I would appreciate. That said, I don't believe this changes my position. > And did you look for evidence I had continued to maintain it in the face of all evidence before deciding to use it as a conclusive case study of, how did you put it? You have not published a retraction. Prior to publishing your assertions about wright you had *already* been called out for unethical conduct. You continued to not publish a retraction. > Funny how everything just establishes my 'complicity' more firmly. What I understand here is that you're complaining that I am saying that: Either you're complicit by being a fool who has argued himself into a corner and actually believes the nonsense, or you're complicit by knowing better and not actually doing the right thing in light of it. But only your continued refusal to behave ethically and retract makes this look like a damned if you do / damned if you don't situation. > I didn't personally gain anything You gained an incredible amount of traffic and attention, some of which directly results in advertising income for you. Over three years later the wired article is still in the middle of the first page of google results in a search for "Gwern" for me. [Not to mention, you certainly have not shied away from exploiting your charitable contributions to [improve your social standing](https://donations.vipulnaik.com/donor.php?donor=Gwern+Branwen) -- quasi-random link out of the great many results for Gwern AMF] > No one could have been harmed by this because he wasn't taking any investment from VCs How could you possibly know whom he was or wasn't taking money from? I would be happy to agree that it was just a mistake before-- that you reasonably thought the stakes were low (though you'd been cautioned about the ethics of your Satoshi hunt multiple times before) and that you (somewhat less reasonably) thought your research was adequate... Fine. But that was over three years ago, in the time since it has become very clear that people have been getting ripped off-- in all the ways you've named and many others. (Including the billion dollar funny money market cap on "Bitcoin Satoshi Vision, if you're finding yourself unable to reason about something without concrete numbers attached to it) > The risk of being 'sued for just existing' is certainly not remotely the same as for publishing what could be considered libel, by someone who is currently suing someone for precisely that, I have not asked you to do anything other than the bare minimum ethical behavior of retracting an article which you know (at least now) to be false. *That is it*. It may well be that the risk of that is greater than the risk of existing-- sad but true. But that is a risk you already chose to take by choosing to publish in the first place: The risk that you might find yourself wrong and be compelled by honest and ethical conduct (or at least your loss of reputation) to retract it even if doing so made some people mad. Whatever the risk of it is... it is significantly less than the risk I have taken on this-- risks I never would have felt morally obligated to take if not for irresponsible actions on your part that I begged you not to take well in advance with your earlier stalking! It's also potentially less than the risk you take from failing to do so. People who relied on your reporting might be an order of magnitude less vexatious, but they've genuinely been harmed and should have nothing to fear from legal embroilment compared to a certain conman. I also just find the argument suspect on the basis of timing: It's been years now, and the crazy legal threats only started recently. A year ago Wright was still "refusing to say" in public. Recanting would have been doing him a "favor" according to his public claims. If anyone's reputation is to mean anything then when someone prints false material either knowingly/recklessly or prints something they later learn to be false and refuse to retract, their reputation rightfully should be seriously wounded. I don't think it's appropriate to complain about the reasonable, expected, and socially necessary outcome of a situation you voluntarily created and perpetuate. When Wired published a low quality article on a subject nearer and dearer to your heart-- online markets for illicit drugs-- you surely were not [quiet in your criticism towards Greenberg](https://twitter.com/gwern/status/662309914468052992), even though he didn't work on that article. > Why would I not believe the Top 500's own website Maybe because you edited Wikipedia for many years and are aware of the discouragements/prohibitions on primary sources that exist _precisely_ because of this sort of problem? -- information without context is often easily misleading, fraud is just a particularly extreme example. Maybe because the stated purpose of an investigative journalist is to investigate! (though they so seldom do) .. and "could this be fake?" is a basic qualifying question far simpler than your DOJ/SR complaints. ... particularly in this case when it was known to you prior to publication that wright had fabricated a significant amount of material to suggest he created Bitcoin (at a minimum, the backdated blog posts). You write here that wright performing a long con was your leading competing theory. You also specifically mention the non-existence of the "supercomputer" (which was disclaimed by SGI within what... three days of publication?) as being pretty influential in changing your thinking. So shouldn't you have been checking how likely it was that it wasn't faked like the other faked evidence? Or at least finding out what it would take to fake it. Even if top500 hadn't been self-reported (like ... most other science...) it could have had a process that was easily tricked. > I believe the leak was genuine; he had forged them for internal consumption or possibly distributing to investors. That is plausible to me and consistent... also consistent with other fake satoshi leads you found previously: hints that people were dropping for detriment of specific parties/groups they were looking to exploit... I apologize for not considering this possibility in my prior message. > I find it difficult to imagine anyone still believing Wright solely because we suggested he might be Satoshi, There are a great many people who believe it because you and Wired told them it is so-- I end up speaking to people like that regularly--, and because the alternative that the extremely loud, visible, and "ultra confident" actions of wright are fake and that all the media sources were somehow tricked yet there has been _NO_ refutation remotely as confident as the affirmations just strikes a lot of people as too much to believe. Virtually no publication or person that promoted Wright's claims has clearly recanted their position, though I know through channels that many of them now believe they were tricked or that whatever they found persuasive before was junk. People like myself or /u/Contrarian__ who have been steadfastly fought against the sea of wright disinformation are telling you that "authorities" retracting their incorrect claims will go a LONG way to shutting down the con. (I pinged contrarian because I expect he will confirm that it matters) You and I both know that there was little to no serious investigation for most reporting on the subject, and as a result do not find publications such as yours particularly persuasive on their face. This is not true for the general public. Joe Public sees a wall of recognized authorities saying that these claims are credible, then they see some internet nobodies saying that not only isn't it not credible but it's completely absurd. They cannot reconcile these facts. If it were as absurd as we're saying it is, wouldn't the "authorities" have retracted it or gotten serious egg on their face? Face. Meet egg-- really low impact snarky reddit comment edition. Don't like it? then for Christ sake, don't argue with me ... get a retraction published!

Craig Wright is now sending legal threats to people who say he isn't Satoshi. This is important because he has a billionaire for a backer. The bitcoin world is not happy at all. It's the prime drama this week in the land of Dunning-Krugerrands.

l o l o l bitcoiners, man

Calling Bitcoin "beautiful and elegant" is not likely to get me horny