Bitcoin Forum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySoLPnGBelw&feature=youtu.be

The question is not really appropriate. There was nothing to "convince". I would say it was a fair interview and it was interesting to hear his side of the story.


He had to say that to make XT sound good  :D

Other interesting points you can hear for yourself:

12:57  Banks using blockchain not bitcoin
14:12  Other solution if xt is off the table
19:16  Animosity amoung devs  ;)

He's still pushing BIP101 which is probably the worst idea since the invention of software. Gavin and Mike are insane to keep sticking with that concept of doubling the max block size every two years.

Increase max blocksize to 8MB and make the change static, that's the best solution. Then fork again in a few years as/if needed.

You should also add another option:
"Haven't seen it, Don't care"  ;)

He looks like the type of bloke who'd invite you to stay at his house, throw you down a well while you're having a piss in the garden and spend the entire night trying to guilt trip your girlfriend into moving his cock around. Thus I don't find him a comforting presence.

The limit should be lift off completely. The network has its own limitations and doesn't need an artificial one at all.

Maybe we can add that option in a poll. That would be nice. Some people don't care about the 'corporate' words but instead I want to see actions.
I want devs to change bitcoin to be better, and not talk how it can be great while arguing with each other in the meantime.

That idea would never gain consensus. My solution is a compromise that works and has a chance of winning consensus.

Hearn will do anything in XT to get the control. It would take a second for him to throw away BIP 101 and embrace BIP 100. His goal is very clear. To be at the epicenter of bitcoin development.

 :D

nailed it

What I've learned from this is that XT nodes are masking themselves as Core to avoid DOS attacks.
We need Core nodes to pretend they are XT to counter that! Oh, wait... No! ;D

The above only demonstrates that Bitcoin consensus rules need to be rigid and simple so that everyone involved could just remember them and be able to verify if the need arises. A static limit on block size held for a certain (long enough) period of time satisfies that condition in the best possible way.

I also believe that Bitcoin's ledger needs to remain transparent and traceable to prevent corruption and illegal activity on all levels (including that of ruling elites), this should be done in a decentralized way, though an exact solution isn't fairly clear at the moment. It won't solve the problem completely as other competing solutions will provide better anonymity options, but the main monetary backbone for the society needs to be clear.

To put it simply, Bitcoin is an inclusive technology not exclusive and therefore governments will be involved in this one way or another as it is a PoWer play for them. What's important is that the network rules are enforced by the majority of its users and not a small group of select few. The current static limit of 1MB needs to prove itself in action and serve this purpose in order for Bitcoin to be sustainable over the long periods of time and maintain its value.

Playing down BIP100 and playing the fool with Chinese miners, is not a good idea... and that is what he is trying to do. He is using the "fear factor" again to force people to look at

XT as the solution. He also wants to make a soft and cozy place for all the developers who are not part of the Core team.

If and when BIP 100 goes through, XT will be quickly forgotten. I had to smile when I saw the first comment on that video... " do not install bitcoin xt trojan "

BIP100 has no chance of going through. Don't get fooled by "miners votes"

thx for sharing. good interview.

Wait are you saying that the blocksize should have no limit? It seems to me that you don't understand how this thing works at all. Are you aware of all the massive exploits the system could be exposed to if that was the case?

To put a more clear analogy, it was as if you went to a regular everyday car's motor and lifted the max revolutions to limitless. You know what's going to happen once you get past what the actual motor can deal with. This is the case with Bitcoin, thats why a blocksize limit exists at all.

Don't concern yourself with him. He lives in bizarro world and desires a corporate takeover of Bitcoin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad0Pjj_ms2k

Allowing corporates to use bitcoin != corporate takeover.

Corporates using bitcoin = commercial success
Corporates can't use bitcoin = http://saleshq.monster.com/news/articles/2655-the-20-worst-product-failures

Don't ask yourself why no businesses will use the bitcoin blockchain in the future.

Thank god. Why do you think they're building all their blockchains for anyway?

Commercial success != Bitcoin success

Mostly everything corporations touch nowadays they break or turn to plastic shit.

Bitcoin is a prime quality luxury product and we expect it remains so.

[/quote]

just because it doesn't jive with your cock eyed theory that low TPS with high fees is good for bitcoin. doesn't mean it Peter R's theory does not apply in practice.

hes sure what it would so with no block subsidy, my guess is the theory hodls true, because miners still stand to potentially lose out on a lot of fees should there block with (even with 0 subsidy) be orphaned, but the model to calculate SupplyVsDemand needs to be changed a bit i guess.

just because it doesn't jive with your cock eyed theory that low TPS with high fees is good for bitcoin. doesn't mean it Peter R's theory does not apply in practice.

hes sure what it would so with no block subsidy, my guess is the theory hodls true, because miners still stand to potentially lose out on a lot of fees should there block with (even with 0 subsidy) be orphaned, but the model to calculate SupplyVsDemand needs to be changed a bit i guess.
[/quote]

Couldn't be bothered to read you boring comment but let me state again: dynamics currently observed in the network clearly demonstrate that Peter R's assumptions are wrong and therefore his theory does not apply.

right true he forgot to take into account no one would want to use bitcoin if it sucked, due to self imposed limitations

I liked when the interviewer said that Romanians don't like XT, he completely doged that question with an unrelated answer. I guess that must be the reason he wasn't as radical when supporting his opinions about bitcoin there.

Also, when he started using bitcoin there weren't any fees? Even if that's remotely true, the fees exist for a reason. Why would anyone be in support of a developer looking to take fees away from bitcoin? The fee market exists to satisfy demand and supply, and it has been doing that well. This is the last reason the block size should be changed. Getting content in the blockchain shouldn't be worthless, it should rather be expensive when done in large quantities.

It surprised me to read he would agree to BIP 100 if everyone agrees.

That sounds as good intentions at least.

he never said he wanted to "take fees away from bitcoin"...

shouldn't the people who actually do the storing and processing determine how expensive it should be? if they have any business sense they will try to get fees at a level where 80%+ of TX are willing to pay the fee to perform the TX, any less the 80% and they're losing out on TX volume, and more then that and they aren't getting enough fee pre TX.


BIP100 is meh... but ya bacily BitcoinXT will follow whatever Core does because they simply don't have enough support to change the current dev power structure

Might just be me, but the only assumption I can come to by hearing Mike being nostalgic of a bitcoin without fees is this. I believe the existing fee market is good to provide balance between both parties involved (miners, users). IMO a rapid change to the block size limit could destabilize that.

I guess you were trying to be funny but just as a FYI what he obviously ignores is this : miners cooperation ie. centralization.

Does Mike Hearn act like he trying to weaken Bitcoin on purpose or does he do it naturally?

I agree with that, but at the same time, doing nothing keeping the 1MB limit  and hitting it will also destabilize that balance, probably to much gr8er degree.

BIP100's "let the miners deal with it." makes alot of sense

Yes, it makes a lot of sense to let miners set the supply of a resource for which they don't bear the costs.  ::)

No wonder you're a child of Quebec's failed education system.

they do bear the costs!
and also they benefit from full nodes, so they would weigh all that and come up with a goooooooooood number.
game theory 101.

lets not forget that for the longest time minner imposed their own limit which was lower than the block limit and increase it with usage, they have therefor already demonstrated that they understand the importance of keeping a limit

furthermore, having miners set a limit which will maximize total fees collected will ensure more profits for minners and add more incentive for more hashing power.
BoYa Baby
BIP101 is the way to goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

lol omg I almost spit my coffee on my screen.

Bitcoin: the useless luxury blockchain!  :D

You must be kidding right?

No, they don't bear the costs. They can trivially minimize them by cooperating and in general technology will increasingly reduce them by making propagation more efficient.

Also, full nodes have no direct benefits from them. They could very well do their job with a dozen of super nodes only.

I know the value of luxury items is hard for your small brain to comprehend but trust me, it works  :)

Care to give me a single example of high cost luxury open code?  ::)

Bitcoin! :D

The 'if you charge a cunting fortune, they will come' theory is a prime example of the laughable unworldliness of some of the folks involved in Bitcoin.

I'm sure they'll enjoy charging the equivalent of $50 to send a few cents to each other. The rest of the world will carry on happily as before or go with a system that's designed to actually accommodate them.

"The rest of the world" is irrelevant as they don't control the resources ie. they're poor.

Those that do are not interested in using it for sending cents and are not deterred by transactions costs.

Have to concur with this, bitcoin should not be "luxury", and brg44 is misrepresenting the outlook of the technologies he supports if that's what he really believes.

There's a balance to be struck. We've recognised that those fighting for BIP101 want that because it is unbalanced to one extremity, but any arguments in favour of actual exclusivity is clearly the inverse of the BIP101 misbalance. "Luxury" implies "not enough supply to meet demand", which is not desirable.

The block size cap is precisely to manage the supply in full expectation that all demand can not be met.

You're implying supply = demand - 1 notional unit of demand, and that's doesn't correspond with my idea of a "luxury" service.

What is your idea of a "luxury" service? Mine is one that makes no compromise (in this case security) just to appeal to larger mass of users.

This is pretty much in line with the idea of Bitcoin as a settlement network.

Not convicing at all. He's pushing with half truth/lies for his own interest... So sad Bitcoin is now more about politics than ever.

I don't accept that definition, or it's preposition that there exists a tradeoff between bitcoin's network security and it's transaction rate.

Are you genuinely trying to say that the strategy should be to target some factor by which the supplied blockspace should be reduced by in respect of demand? That would be a form of luxury service to me, and if any future overlay payment solutions couldn't take up that slack, then I don't know how competitive that kind of Bitcoin would actually be. I don't support that kind of exclusive/conservative approach any more than the throw-resource-responsiblity-to-the-wind approach of BIP101.

I think we agree that the block size should be a function of the resources requirement for one person to become a peer in the network (fully validate by running a full node).

Therefore it stands to reason that the Bitcoin blockchain will forever be able to accommodate only a marginal amount of transactions worldwide given the resources load implied. Hence the exclusive, "luxury" qualitative.

In which case, we need a definition for the size/location of the margin. I suspect that outright exclusivity is only one way out of many.

Exclusivity is a consequence of the strict security requirements of Bitcoin.

Fortunately this exclusivity does not discriminate people based on status, gender, religion, sexuality, etc but mere financial means.

Moreover, unlike what some narrow minded people would have you believe this does not limit the benefits of Bitcoin to transactions occuring directly on its blockchain. I'm sure you understand that anyway...

Reading Mike Hearn cry on the development emails is the most cringe worthy thing.

Go read the BIP65 deployment thread on the dev emails. He is the only one opposing it, and everyone else is showing consensus.

Constantly stirring up drama, belittling other devs, and arguing like a little kid. So annoying.

Deployment of BIP65 should not be held up just because one dev is giving NACK. Many scalability projects are depending on BIP65 to progress.

Okay, but I stand by my original point really: using words like "luxury" gives the wrong impression of your actual own position, as you've conceded that you only intend a premium on main chain transaction space, not with off-chain transactions or other secondary solutions. You're not making this distinction clear IMO.

You shall not worry, it won't.

Why not? That's the Core blockade strategy at its finest.

I did think your issue was with my choice of word but I'd like to remind you that it was picked in response to knight22's qualification of Bitcoin as some sort of "commercial" good.

In that context, I do think it is legitimate to qualify Bitcoin as a "luxury" item, an "exclusive" payment network.

Because one dissident, unless he offers potent reasoning behind his objection (and not mere semantics as Mike is currently doing), is not enough to work against an otherwise vast general consensus.

There are way more people opposed to what Mike Hearn is suggesting, then the opposite.

The block size debate, which is completely seperate from BIP65, probably had 50-50 consensus amongst devs for BIP101.

The only NACK for BIP65, if I am reading everyones emails properly, is from Mike. And it's due to hard fork vs soft fork deployment. Consensus being soft fork.

If bitcoin goes down that path, another more "inclusive" and affordable/competitive system will take over. The bitcoin blockchain has nothing magical tied to it. If you create an artificial cost associated to its usage, you only create an economic incentives for ALL market participants to use another blockchain that scales better and is cheaper.

Bitcoin blockchain might be the stronger and bigger one ATM but it could easily change if there is an economic incentive to do so. And no, bitcoin won't be the "luxury" blockchain. It will only become irrelevant.

What   ???

More like 90-10

^^ Probably, my facts are probably wrong on that.

50/50 is more on the market participants side rather than devs.

 ::)

You sound like all socialist shills.

There is no value in "inclusion" and "affordable". Did you not learn anything from your plastic cars, plastic appliances and rampant planned obsolescence.

Cheap people deserve cheap chains, driving costs down necessarily means driving quality down and then your left with a piece of shit that everyone can use but has no value. This is pretty much a reflection of what is wrong with this consumer-driven society: everyone feel entitled to things they can't pay for.

Yes, Heam is by far our most valuable lolcow, and has been all summer.

This last season of All My Bitcoins would have been relatively boring without that stooge playing Wormtounge to Gavin's Théoden.

I'm not sure what you sound like. I do know it has very little to do with how that real world place operates.

If it happens I hope you enjoy your luxury blockchain and all the comforts, prestige and wonderful evenings on the riviera it brings. I'll be shopping elsewhere with the little people.

I know exactly (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=919629.msg10105061#msg10105061) what brg444 sounds like.  They have little concern for the real world and only consider the magical world of make believe their fellow MP worshippers reside in.  I'll be shopping elsewhere with the little people too if those particular lunatics manage to take over the asylum.

How's running that full node going for you Adam?

At the end of the interview he mentioned that the communication between devs has come to a halt, this is a problem right now, maybe because there is no clear and efficient way to communicate, or could be caused by totally different view, difficult to reach any consensus

Pretty Romania girl by the way  ;D

Hey, guys, Shopping (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFLow5StvvU) is easier done with those plastic VISA cards, they work pretty good, you should try! Users of independent and autonomous Bitcoin network carry both costs: (1) transacting on the blockchain and (2) maintaining its operation. We carry both and it's the sole purpose of Bitcoin existing. This is how real world operates: VISA for shopping, Bitcoin for taking responsibility for your own future.

For shopping on internet there will be a better blockchain. Like it or not. That blockchain will be more useful than bitcoin will ever be.

But thanks for reminding us that bitcoin is not the only one in town.

I really hope so because I have such terrible difficulties shopping on the internet as things currently stand...

...But I have TONS of options to go to when looking for censorship-proof money.

Bitcoin is also about frictionless money. No so much with VISA. If you can't see the big picture I do.

Not sure I understand what you are trying to say. Of course censorship is also a considerable layer of friction but the legacy financial system has a lot more frictions than just censorship.

The last time you mentioned that Bitcoin is also "frictionless programmable money", I responded that I didn't really know what you mean by that. I was hoping for an explanation or some examples.

Then while thinking about it, I realized that Bitcoin has several kinds of friction, some of which are essential to the operation of the network itself.

I still don't know what the use cases of "frictionless programmable money" are, or why Bitcoin is best suited for those uses.

https://i.imgur.com/P5h5vhB.png

https://i.imgur.com/4UkcMmb.png

PLEASE PHORK OFF ALONG WITH YOUR EBAYCOIN

Better questions: what friction are we supposed to believe people experience today in their online shopping experience? Is anyone really complaining?

For an average person it comes down to user experience, Bitcoin has the worst of them all.

Bitcoin is frictionless compared to the legacy financial system, specially over the internet. Of course it has some friction too (confirmation time and fees) but it is negligible if we compare that with what banks have in terms of frictions.


https://openbazaar.org/
http://www.joystream.co/
https://www.changetip.com/

As per example. And that just the beginning. Too bad all of these platforms will have to move to another more desirable blockchain that scales in a competitive manner at some point.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think the examples here really need the raw power of censorship-proof money if there is any chance that bloating the chain with every transaction under the sun (excuse the exaggeration) may actually harm Bitcoin's ability to remain censorship-proof (which I most certainly think it will). I would honestly prefer these transactions never touch the block chain (unless there is some kind of aggregation).

Clearly we disagree on this point and I doubt very much that either of us will be able to see the other's point of view. Perhaps the best answer is truly a fork so both sides can move forward with their specific goals in mind.

I'm curious, do you run a full node knight22?

OpenBazaar and joystream absolutely need censorship-poof money to operate. The thing is, good enough decentralization is good enough. If there is censorship, then these platforms will just migrate to another blockchain. There is no value to add censorship on a blockchain at all.  

To answer your question I do run a node but I don't mind if I can't at some point but I'm also sure the market will come up with cheap solutions so I can continue for a long time ahead regardless of how bitcoin scales.  

Why?


I'm not sure what "good enough" decentralization is. If I can't run a full node over a shitty internet connection in an environment that is anti-Bitcoin, then I would say the decentralization is not good enough.


Either you have fantastic resources, gimp your node like I do, or are extremely optimistic. Do you keep track of the bandwidth your node currently uses with the 1mb spam limit in place?

OpenBazaar is a decentralized censorship-proof market place and Joystream is an torrent sharing platform with micro-payments to give incentive for better upload.

No need to explain further why they need censorship-proof money.  


Good enough decentralization is good enough to keep bitcoin censorship-free with all the feature it actually offers. I can't tell how much nodes does that represent (I guess time will tell) but being able to run it on a shitty internet connection is unnecessary although it would be a nice to have.


I guess I'm extremely optimistic but as I said, I don't really mind if I won't be able to run a node at some point. Why should I care anyway? The cat is out of the bag and if bitcoin eventually become too centralized and allow censorship then I'll just move to the next uncensored blockchain just like I will do if the bitcoin blockchain doesn't scale enough.

"Just move to the next blockchain"

 :D

If only it could really be so simple as it is in your delusions...

What is the difficulty in moving assets to another blockchain? This does not seem complicated. :)

--

Not sure how a blockchain with a disorganized core team is going to compete long term with a core that has an organized team (http://coinmarketcap.com/). << Thinking otherwise would be the delusional mindset.

Just wait for an economic incentive to do so and you won't believe how simple it will be. https://shapeshift.io/


Ask yourself why bitcoin have an organized team then you'll understand why it will happen to another blockchain if necessary.

Why do you need to kill Bitcoin?  Why not just move on now before it is ruined?

Because there is still no economic incentives to do so, but its coming. If bitcoin is killed it's because it will become irrelevant.

you big block supporters for the sake of expanding to the masses really dont get it sometimes.  example... in my hood theres a bus that runs every 10 minutes.  its pretty much empty most of the time except rush hour.  during rush hours some people need to wait for the next bus.  so the proposal is to get a bigger bus and lets keep getting bigger buses so more people can get on.  what you dont realize is if you get a bigger bus this bus company will go out of business before enough people move to the neighborhood to use it.  this is absurd and you are all idiots.  tss out

in my hood there is a full blown subway every 4 min because your silly bus every 10 min won't be able to clear all the sheeples.

Bitcoin has the mindshare to succeed in some use-cases and to some degree indefinitely.  It will only be 'irrelevant' if it fails to live up to it's promise as a reliable and trusted vehicle for storage and transfer of value.  The most likely way that will happen is exactly as you seem to be anticipating...centralization and censorship.  And the most likely way that will happen is if it outgrows it's potential to be supported in a hostile environment.  I am very confident that this is exactly the goal for certain influential and well financed elements of the ecosystem at this time.

Reliable also means stay competitive in a competitive environment so it can also fails without centralization and censorship. Bitcoin can't afford to stay behind the curse too long in terms of scaling capacity and competitive fees.


Who do you have in mind?

Mike and his alikes highlight what is worst in the community.

Bitcoin is suffering the childish attitude of a few irrelevant social spammers, but it shall prevail and exit this crisis reinforced in its fundamentals.

He sounds as always. As the elitist ad hominem spammer destroying also this thread. Unfortunately he believes that he has to be everywhere to take over every thread and having the last word in every case. 30 percent of the posts are written by this pseudo 'bitcoiner'. Disgusting and completely against the idea of Bitcoin.

No, you're projecting your own transgressions onto others again. You're supporting the banks taking control of Bitcoin by promoting the accelerated growth of node resource requirements out fo the reach of ordinary users and ordinary miners.

You are the psuedo-bitcoiners, and you are the relentless BS artists in this debate. You cannot alter reality by virtue of continuously re-stating your preferred fantasy, everything you and your cohort have said and done is still here in black and white, and it turns out that the vast majority of genuine bitcoiners were not as gullible as your tactics suggest that you believed. No wonder you're all so incredibly bitter.

You are the one who is bitter. You - like brg444 - are one of those who notoriously attack others ad hominem. Your newest ad hominem attack: "Hearn is a sociopath".

When you look at the picture, there is widespread consensus in the technical community to deploy bip65 as a softfork, so there is no reason not to do it.

A NACK embellished with dubious explainations from a controversial person who has started a software propagation war and who has not contributed to core developments since a long time, should be ignored, similarly to Bitcoin nodes ignoring invalid blocks.

It's not ad hominem when it's:

• The actual point of an argument
• True

Taking responsibility for your own future implies that you do care about the long term impact of your choices and actions. I know, we all grew up in this consumerist mindset and are not used to things like Bitcoin, so we are still projecting the old thinking onto this new technology. But I'm glad that many now realize that this "Game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH34kMOjmQk)" is "Just A Lil Bit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GllEDACUbNo)" different and being conscious and responsible is "How We Do (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH34kMOjmQk)".

Moving to the next (good) blockchain might prove to be difficult as PoW systems are extremely hard to duplicate in order for them to remain secure and independent from each other. We only have a few decent ones to play with and losing the most prominent example and the pioneer of that technology may have devastating effects on the whole crypto-verse in general. I would rather have another similar system make a risky move and experiment, while Bitcoin enjoys its heavyweight champion position and the sense of stability and trust that comes along with it. The leader only responds when being challenged in its area of expertise.

In other word: an ad hominem is not an ad hominem when I do it. Riiiight.  ::)

Today's the day Mike went 100% cray cray.  :P

There is nothing hard to change for the next blockchain specially if there is an economic incentive to do so PLUS real capacity limitations. There is nothing magical behind the bitcoin blockchain and if it can't deliver than be it. Trust is hard to gain but easy to loose. You won't be able to stop me and most of the market participant to move to something else and there will be no coming back. Just wait and watch.

1) "nothing hard". Oh, "You Don't Know! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngH0fkiNo-g)" how hard it is to build the excessive hash-power that controls the coins emission schedule and secures the network at the same time. It takes a lot of time and there has to be a very good reason to even begin thinking about trying to duplicate that.

2) "nothing magical". There sure has been a whole lot of "magical smoke (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1162684.msg12567285#msg12567285)" floating around this forum in recent months as the beam of "cluons (http://catb.org/jargon/html/Q/quantum-bogodynamics.html)" is getting stronger than ever. ;D

3) Trust is indeed "hard to gain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_VRSFpUcp0)", that's why Bitcoin is not in position to make some stupid moves without careful considerations of their potential impact on the future of the whole crypto-currency idea.

4) Moving to "something else (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waBb-UM5m4g)" is just fine, I'm also watching this space from many different perspectives and consider a healthy competitive environment as a positive thing in general.

5) Of course, I do! And you too "Just Watch! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SohEf5dF45g)" ;D

No, it's about whether the value judgement is the subject of a debate or whether it is intended as a subversive or diversive tactic i.e. actually conforming to the actual definition of ad hominem

But there's no need to explain to you, you re-write the book on subversive and diversionary argumentative tactics (literally) all day long (indeed, I'm currently defending myself from your twisted logic approach). 

You should try to defend yourself with arguments instead of fluffy meaningless post (like above).

If BIP 101 were adopted, we would move to 8MB, then when the first doubling came around, we could "fork again in a few years as/if needed".  If the first doubling were judged OK, we could revisit again in four years,  etc.

The idea that 101 somehow locks us in to the doubling permanently is completely wrong.  If 101 truly sounds like the "worst idea since the invention of software" to you, you've been listening to the shills too much.

The only thing that forces us to come together and consider changing the rules is "static" limit on block size, but only when enough pressure begins building up. With the curve in BIP101 there will never be a distinct point in time that would trigger us to consider deviating from that schedule. The blockchain will slowly but surely be sliding away and eventually get locked up in those large data-centers under the premise of "national security", that's where Bitcoin as we know it would end.

But, as it stands now, even 8MB blocks might be risky at the moment as we may lose significant amounts of full nodes and then decisions of changing the "consensus" rules will be made without the actual users of the network. Economic pressure is a good thing, we should be welcoming it as there is a need to test this aspect of the system and see what other effects come into play and how the whole ecosystem reacts to this.

History proves you wrong on this one.  We've already changed the block size cap - it used to be unlimited (effectively 20MB due to other restrictions) and it was moved to 1MB as a temporary measure to avoid potential spamming.  


Switching to 8MB cap does exactly nothing immediately to the block size.  We currently have a 1MB cap, yet we do not have 1MB blocks.  8MB gives some room to grow, that's all.


Then you should welcome a block size increase.  We already have an open economic system.  If miners want higher fees, they are free to increase their minimums.  If enough of them do, then users will need to pay the fees or live with a slower transaction time.  If/when we hit the cap, we will be entering uncharted territory, and imposing an artificial block on the natural increase of Bitcoin adoption.

In the early stages the system had very little mass and inertia, thus Satoshi could easily tweak a few parameters here and there without everyone being concerned. The 1MB limit was placed 5 years ago, became part of the consensus rules and hasn't been touched since then. Only now we begin talking about it in a serious way.


It does. If the current limit is removed before it becomes effective, then the new one doesn't make any sense, we can just as well throw it away. But that would definitely affect network's long-term characteristics (like costs to entry into validation) and make its evolutionary dynamics so much less predictable. If we are to agree on the new limit we must let the current one hold long enough and prove itself in action.


Yes, we haven't gone through this yet. The part of the cycle when the system is operating under the economic pressure is absolutely necessary, as Bitcoin needs to demonstrate that the validation costs can temporarily go down in order for the idea of freely accessible blockchain to be sustainable over the decades to come. If Bitcoin cannot show this, then any even remotely successful crypto-currency would be destined to eventually centralize and lose its original core values.

There must be a force in the economic system which can weight in on the limit and defend it at all costs as it's supposed to represent their interests. We are talking about the Bitcoin users here and we stand united.

Just noticed the disconnect between your message and your username.   ;D

I appreciate your attention to details for I value that just as well. :)

My username suggests the next bandwidth target for the idea of a static limit on block size, but doesn't hint at the time when the adjustment needs to be made. I argued against many other more sophisticated scalability proposals with mathematical rigor, but it was when I found myself defending the future limit against the current one, that I realized the obvious contradiction in my line of thinking.

Finding the appropriate moment in time for the transition would become the most challenging and interesting part of Bitcoin's evolutionary path.

8mb block outta thin future extrapolations is as dumb as any other blocksize BIP proposal.

Besides, scaling is not a matter of blocksize so how about people let it go?

1MB Blocksize purposely prevent spam, and it is working just fine.

Its time the delusional reddit wanabees face the reality as such fork wont happen any time soon.

Economic majority wins.

Hearn, Gavin and their little noobs army out.

Well, suppose that bitcoin is, in fact, growing and being adopted as we speak. While I'm obviously not too bothered by the idea of a fee market, I still think a fee market is less desirable than no fee market. So, if we have already maximized efficiency/minimized spam (we have not), I think addressing throughput directly is the next logical answer.

So, to the extent that we can increase the block size limit without foregoing or jeopardizing key tenets of bitcoin (consensus, decentralization, network security), I think we should do that. But that necessarily entails a very conservative approach where we can achieve testable conditions (i.e. roughly in line with actual demand).

8MB, exponential scaling = straight up reckless.

If it resolved a sudden spike in Bitcoin userbase (i.e. larger than x8), something like "8 and 8 only" wouldn't be such a terrible compromise to me, but I'd far prefer the beginning of at least some of the non-blocksize scaling solutions before any sudden aberrations in the transaction rate ever happen. Hope it transpires that way, a userbase spike right here in October 2015 would just reignite this timewasting nonsense all over again.

I'm glad that you're supporting the current 1MB limit to stay long enough, so do I.

The 8MB number comes from the idea that changes in the consensus rules need to be rare and discreet, otherwise the internal competition in the system would tear the whole idea of consensus apart fairly quickly. From that perspective the limit needs to be high enough for us not to bother changing it again for a long period of time and at the same time be able to counter potential external competition in this space. But because the new limit is so high compared to the current one we need to be careful with the appropriate timing for the change to take effect.


8MB is indeed more of a throughput suggestion than anything else. There are concerns about super-linearity property of block verification time (meaning that single 8MB block might take longer to verify than 8x1MB blocks), so those need to be taken into account when the actual solution is going to be implemented.

Fee market is another interesting aspect of the system as the competition is supposed to prevent the economic pressure from building up too high, but the network effect and the costs to switch should work in favor of keeping each particular system pressurized. In the idealistic scenario that I keep in mind a few healthy coins representing the core values of the original idea might work as cylinders in the combustion engine, where each system is pressurized to the max at different moments in time and decides to raise its bandwidth target before the pressure leaves to another one. We will see how much of that actually manifests.

Yeah, despite his signature exposing the debt-based central banking mega-scam! Isn't that highly... peculiar? The retarded arguments of some of these bizarro posters is flabbergasting, their motivations hard to imagine...



THIS is the big question. This is what we want to figure out. Assuming motives is equally as silly as assuming that the most advanced malicious and sophisticated attackers are sitting idly by while decentralization undoes their millennia-old process of consolidation of centralized power structures.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the latter assumption. Evidence suggests that the incumbents you are referring to almost certainly gamed the decentralisation trend as a scenario at least 20 years ago, if not further back. 

Hearn and Gavin are clearly trying to implement a solution that would mimic a 'Satoshi solution' if he were active/present. But they are wrong.

Satoshi wouldn't auto-double the block limit every 2 years simply because we cannot predict the future that far in advance. Scaling the block limit is not a long-term (decades long) solution. Instead, he would increase the block limit to some arbitrary even number (probably eight), make it static and large enough to buy some years. Then he'd fork again down the road if network demand dictated and as additional solutions presented.

However, with the current regulatory squeeze and with businesses becoming frustrated over the core team's inaction, if we wait just a little longer, it won't be necessary to scale because network growth will enter a reversal/dying phase.

Why are people so worried about Bitpay and Circle being frustrated? Hell, Bitpay has got much bigger fish to fry than the block size debate. The blocks aren't full -- now bitcoin will die because the limit hasn't been increased?

Come on, now.... ::)

Dont like this persona, he didn't convience me.
He made enough evil things to bitcoin community, so no more him plz.

But changing the block size to 8MB and doubling it every year is nuts for me, aside from the fact that Hearn and Gavin keep on pushing BIP 101 in our asses. I'm not convinced, though there are some points that interests me in that certain interview.

I'm probably one of the most rabid '1MBers' around and have been for years.  Ironically, I have no real problem with going to 8MB.  I only want to make sure that it happens AFTER a workable scaling mechanism to support 'every frappuccino purchase worldwide' has been fielded and proven.  Since way back in 2011, 'subordinate chains' has been what I see as the best solution in terms of achievability.

It became clear to me many years ago just on simple math that even at 1MB, jump-starting a full verifying node would be most practical by transferring physical media.  As long as the block size remains such that the blockchain can be passed along on a single and affordable consumer-grade storage device, I'm mostly happy.

If certain critical functions of 'native Bitcoin' can be effectively 'carried along' by those operating a purpose-oriented sidechain (for instance) then the pools of potential infrastructure support for native Bitcoin could be greatly expanded.  That is another metric I use in deciding what scale is acceptable and what scale is to onerous.

That's probably exactly what Blockstream wants too.  With of course, their business interests cemented and future profits ensured.

What a despicable individual your are >:(

Who the hell would not want that?

BTW, neither you nor anyone else produced a plausible way in which Blockstream was going to somehow dominate the planet (or even make much money) by developing the technology they are working on and open-sourcing it.  I had a thread dedicated to that purpose and got basically zero bites.  Remember it?  If not I'll dig up a link.

Anything that's not mainchain is unproven at best.  Forestalling a blocksize increase is bad for bitcoin and self serving, and everybody knows it.


Because I disagree with your opinion, I'm a despicable individual?  lolz.  love you too.  :-*

I don't want something that is being forced upon. End of story.

Wrong again Bob.  As a hodler I believe that I would make more money quicker of we did an infinite block size and handed things over to corp/gov.

I've been obsessed with the data rate and how to mitigate the weaknesses high data rates expose since I first read the whitepaper.  It is not surprising in the least to me to see the people I have the most respect for and trust the most addressing the issues in the same basic way that made sense to me years ago (through subordinate chains.)  I am also delighted that they are going well beyond where my imagination was capable of going and are working on some methods which will trim off many of the rough edges I imagined.

I'm still waiting for an actual plausible mechanism by which Blockstream is going dominate and corrupt the ecosystem, by the way.

I dunno jonald, isn't it actually because you keep inventing fantasy facts, and repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating

and repeating until it hopefully sticks?



It's not working. Reality exists, unfortunately. Sorry about that.

I didn't mean to imply there isn't great potential, but its certainly unproven compared to mainchain, and the stalling is harmful. 

Good for you if you trust blockstream.  I trust that they will do what they think benefits their company the most.

So do I.  What will benefit them the most is a rock solid Bitcoin core upon which to build a properly scaling set of solutions.  This is exactly what I want as well.

People say the block size increase is a threat to centralization and falsely accuse me of pushing for a corporate takeover but don't give a damn about a single CORPORATION taking absolute control over bitcoin development.

How can it be more pathetically contradictory?

Well, I guess we should agree to disagree that there is a conflict of interest then.

I'll just quote what I said in another thread and leave it at that.

I think that most people consider you to be a totally lost and outclassed imbecile and are neither surprised nor very interested in what might be going on inside your cranium.

/gratuitous ad hominem

BTW, I do 'give a damn about a single corporation taking absolute control over Bitcoin development.'  That's one difference I have with you and yours.

Such an enlightening answer  ::)

I didn't expect much from you anyway.

You have to admit, "totally lost and outclassed imbecile" was some nice colorful languaging.

Right, I couldn't came up with such creativity  :D

I admit that I had to go to the net to find the word 'gratuitous'.  I had one of those things where I could not think of the word but I knew exactly what I wanted.

What a nice, peaceful and colorful discussion here! :D


It would seem that temporary reversals in the network "data rate" growth are necessary steps intended to keep the validation costs sustainable (within a certain corridor) over the decades to come. We will have to accept whatever other effects come from it in order to preserve this one fundamental attribute of the system.


I agree with this, though I would consider the "data rate" to be more vulnerable characteristic of the network than "storage costs", due to the fact that some ISPs might (and do) impose "total bandwidth caps per month" limitations having direct impact on running a full node continuously, while storage devices can be accumulated without any limit.

Regarding the Blockstream and subordinate chains I would give them a benefit of a doubt, simply because I haven't been following the developments there and cannot properly assess the proposals on their technical merit at the moment. On the other hand, if the protocol begins "endorsing" the accumulation of unlimited amounts of bitcoins in third-party services (subordinate chains), while the bandwidth in the main chain remains limited and the costs high, the situation might produce what I call systemic risks and can severely shatter the trust for the whole solution.

I think, Paul Sztorc mentioned in his "Measuring Decentralization (http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/measuring-decentralization/)" article something about custodial periods of about a week for bitcoins to be locked to a particular side chain, maybe that would work or maybe it will become cost prohibitive, hard to predict at the moment. But regardless of the above, it's pretty clear that the main chain needs to remain sustainable (cost-wise) over the long periods of time and we have to accept whatever other effects this particular attribute brings.