Bitcoin Forum

Here are the basic arguments for each case as I understand them:

Rationale for "small blocks centralize bitcoin":  When transactions are forced off chain, we'll increasingly rely on trusted parties rather than trustless main chain Bitcoin.
Rationale for "big blocks centralize bitcoin":  Bigger blocks will increase costs of running a full node, and make slower connection miners more uncompetitive.

Also: bigger blocks = more transactions = more users = more nodes = more miners = more security in numbers = higher prices = more transactions…

More is better. It's not complicated : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r6udb4LNcw

http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/measuring-decentralization/

A great majority if Bitcoin users already rely on third parties. Layered networks on top of Bitcoin will provide trustless ways to manage your money without having to directly transact on Bitcoin blockchain

If the blocks were *extremely* large I could buy the notion that the hardware costs would be prohibitive. But per Moores Law the jump to 8 MB from 1 MB six years ago is actually regressive - at 18 months per doubling we ought to be at 16 MB by now.

Bitcoin has more users and more transactions than ever and the node count is at its lowest since its early days.

This is a PEER-TO-PEER network.

A peer in the Bitcoin network is a node.

MORE USERS = MORE NODES

MORE TRANSACTIONS != MORE USERS

The way I started seeing it, if you don't have a basic enough Internet connection to serve a Bitcoin network, than you don't need to be doing it at all.

Also, isn't the biggest problem of the Internet in China? Haven't they agreed that they can push 8MB blocks anyways? So why not increase blocks in the core right away to 8MB? Questions for devs that don't want a change.

You do understand the point of running a nodes is not only to "serve the Bitcoin network" but also avail yourself with its full power.

If you don't run a node then you are relying on someone else to process your transactions.

With the speed the avarge internet speed has increased in US and europe, we can expect china to have more than suitable avarage speed to handle bigger blocks.. And else they relocate their mining farms to a better location or something...

miners process transactions. no one else.

you just need the UTXO with that you can submit your transactions to the miner yourself (eligius even have/had a web-frontend for this)

small block size will centralizing bitcoin not big blocks, with small block size only transaction with high fees will confirmed so it will out of reach of normal users only limited big guys who pay more fees will get confirmation and control

58 'posts' today. Why are you fulltime spamming all the threads?

The answer to the question in the OP is apparently "both".  So we might as well accept it and aim for somewhere in the middle.  Medium blocks it is.  Argument over.   ;D

If only it could be that simple.   ::)




Can't convert people to the elite-chain way of thinking if he doesn't get the MP-inspired rhetoric out there somehow.  There's only a limited time to try and steer the direction we choose into one that primarily benefits them over the average user.  Good thing we're not going to do that, though.  Bitcoin will naturally remain open, permissionless and neutral.  It's not going to be co-opted by a few zealots.  There's a happy middle ground to be found somewhere and damnit, we're going to find it.

brg444 is the only one that voted bigger blocks  :D :D

Did you watch the video?  Even the little kids get it without anyone having to teach it to them :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r6udb4LNcw

I didn't vote  :D

Gathering quotes to put together somes good jokes for this weekend's conference  ;D

I would rather have larger blocks than to expand trust or to rely on third parties. The whole point was for bitcoin to be more decentralized,
and not to force it's users on relying on anyone other than the network itself.
I don't buy the story that the number of full nodes will go down in link to bigger blocks. Today bandwidth and storage are pretty cheap.

so who voted for big blocks= centralizing so far except brg? 

It's reached the point now where it doesn't matter whether you think it should be large blocks or small blocks.  Both options are equally contentious in their own way.  We can't make it prohibitively expensive to transact on-chain, but at the same time, we can't make it prohibitively expensive in terms of resources required to run a node.  We should move away from "big vs small" and focus on where to strike a balance between the two.  It's the only sensible way forward.

yup

i vote for 1GB block limit

  The "big=central" votes crept up from 1 to 5 over the last couple hours but no one except brg posted supporting it.. hmmmmmmm

I think big blocks would have a disproportionately negative effect on grassroots distributed mining operations such as p2pool. Because of the 30 second p2pool blocks, the effect would be far worse than for a regular pool or mining farm.

Ok, so the hashrate contribution of p2pool is low, but why kill a good thing?

Small blocks, big blocks...
Nah, we need spaceblocks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcY090XV284)!
But because space is infinite, 8MB will satisfy the condition only if it gets laid, hence the hard-fork!  ;D

There are different types of centralization, if you are not careful, you will always end up with one type of centralization. The real question is which type of centralization is most dangerous for bitcoin

An extremely small block will make the blockchain work like Fedwire system: Only coins worth more than 1 million dollars can be transferred in a timely and cheap manner, thus blockchain will only serve the rich and institutions. Although anyone can run a node, they can not afford making transactions on blockchain, they have to rely on payment processors and web wallet providers to do micro transactions

An extremely large block will make the blockchain work like IT admin's club: Only those mainframe server sitting on internet backbone can relay the blocks, all the other nodes have to connect to them in SPV style, no normal people can run a node, they have to rely on those supernodes to do transaction

If any powerful entity want to kill the bitcoin network, they will easily do that through killing those super nodes, but they will achieve almost nothing by killing those web wallet providers and payment processors, because the damage is limited at micro transactions. So the first kind of centralization is less dangerous than the second

Of course these are extreme cases, some where in between we might find a balance point where both centralization do not happen. But from survival point of view, the first is always the safest bet

pretty sure smaller blocks = more centralized. still dont really understand the whole thing, but Andreas seems to think so, so I\m betting on his opinion. arent the only people in favour of smaller blocks the big private miners? that should tell you something...anyways, the network is going to figure it out. just like the hard fork all those years ago... much arguing, but as soon as it was in effect and the network survived everybody shut up.

Yep. 

Then next topic.

Maybe block halving if that doesn't come sooner.

If nothing else, we can also fall back on constant price speculation.  :D

Moores law seems to be exempting internet speed. 

http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/23/akamai-global-average-internet-speed-grew-10-year-over-year-to-5-0-mbps-but-only-4-6-have-broadband/ (http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/23/akamai-global-average-internet-speed-grew-10-year-over-year-to-5-0-mbps-but-only-4-6-have-broadband/)

http://1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/average_connection_speed_akamai_q1_2015.png

at 5MBPS

takes 1 second to download 5MB

why in the world are we thinking 1-8MB
we should be thinking 100-800MB

Block size is not the centralizing factor. Bitcoin core is decentralized, Bitcoin XT (by Gavin's own admission) is a totalitarian dictatorship.

Yeah and you forgot

More blocks = centralized nodes = bitcoin dead as we know it.

Not to mention bigger possibility for exploits etc. So to think it's as simple as more is better is having no idea how this works. Otherwise there would be no debate about it.

isn't that megabits per second not bytes?

5 megabits per second would be 8 times slower I assume since there are 8 bits in a byte.
let's use a round number and say 1 megaBYTE per second...if you want a safe download time
well under the ten minute block time, let's say 1 minute, so that would put us at around 60 megabyte blocks.

And how a dictatorship run by 5 compromised poeple is any different?

Look at it this way.

If we target higher than 8MB, we will put home-based population of Bitcoin at risk -> slippery slope.
If we target lower than 8MB, we will artificially cap Bitcoin and allow it to mutate into sidechains (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1176330.msg12391342#msg12391342).

If we don't like SW centralization and dictatorship then changing one line of code (1MB -> 8MB) is the simplest thing we could ever make.
Plus the number 8 (put on its side) opens up Bitcoin's way to infinity, so you really won't get better than this.

It's time for all of us to agree. :)