Bitcoin Forum

The drama between Theymos and anyone who isn’t following his hidden agenda is far from over. Earlier today, popular Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp announced how they will be implementing BIP 101 in a few days. As you would come to expect, it was only a matter of time until Theymos issued a comment on how Bitstamp will be removed from all Bitcoin references, including Reddit and the Bitcoin Wiki.

http://bitcoinist.net/bitstamp-banned-theymos-supporting-bip-101/

Care somebody to explain in short who is Theymos and why should I care about him? I read the article and I still don't quite get it.

Why does reddit matter?

Why there is opposition regarding increasing block size? Would it devaluate the mining?

There is currently no need for a BIP 101 implementation as the 8MB blocksize is way too high and will lead to a dramatic-unnecessary increase of the blockchain size. The majority of the pools don't want the 8MB increase, isn't that enough reason to stop this nonsense?

Either way, the Core devs should come with a solution and that must be quick. This is not good for the community and the image of Bitcoin. I hope there will be a change to 2MB blocks as that is an appropriate midway solution to keep the people happy.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=35

Blocks are not set at a given size, it is an 8MB maximum.  There will not magically be a huge number of 8MB blocks just because the maximum is raised.  Satoshi designed bitcoin without a maximum block size at all.  If it is unneeded, then blocks will remain below 1MB and it won't even matter.  When it is needed, the network will be ready for it instead of having this battle again when the 2MB boundary is getting pushed.  Making blocks 8MB as an attack would be incredibly expensive, just like most other attacks that don't happen IRL due to their cost.  Quite frankly, it seems obvious to me that the majority of anti-BIP101 users are running on fears propagated by a few people and groups who believe they can make more money if block sizes are kept lower (either by higher mining fees [vs more mining fees in bigger blocks] or by fees in their off-chain "solution" to the "problem").  IOW, the lack of 8 MB blocks and ongoing battle against them is as disgusting as the corporate politics in most "civilized" countries.

There's another problem element you've overlooked:

Blocksize is not the only way to increase the transaction capacity. And some people are so transfixed on the blocksize issue that they actually believe the opposite.


Remember that the actual goal is to increase transcation capacity, and that increasing the blocksize is only one way to get there.

The more I read about the blocksize.... Well we can't really call it a debate now can we? It's more like a fucking civil war, the more I think we need a comment from Satoshi on the matter to calm things down. It seems like that each developer has their own agenda with this. As for Gavin and Theymos, they seem to be acting like particular cunts over this issue considering how important the project they're working on is. Also, when are we going to see some optomisation on the wallet itself? I actually dread turning off my Bitcoin wallet now because the verification process is so slow and knowing Bitcoin it's only going to get slower as the transactions increase.

This is so right. This actually feels like war.Fact is we have to find a solution for that issue.The earlier the better imo.
I hope that after the HK conference we will see some silver lining on the horizon.

Bitcoin Core 0.12  will use the in-house cryptographic library for verifying transactions, it increases the verification performance by between 100% and 400%. Pieter Wuille and Greg Maxwell have been working on the library for the past 3 years or so, it's possible you're just not keeping up with the development work that goes on.

you should be banned for posting this here.

/s

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good to have at least the forum at bitcoin.com...

I'm glancing around but there's just too much technical detail and different opinions to keep up with everything, wake me when there's a consensus :P

No no no. You asked about the wallet. Speeding it up. The new library speeds the wallet up. Less time to load up/sync Bitcoin Core, essentially.

Well at least they're solving that issue.

It's been a long time coming. You could argue it was solved (more properly salved IMO) years ago, it's just that the standard practice is to test your own crypto functions every possible way, then try and think of more ways to test it, then do those tests, then try to think of more tests you didn't think of previously....

Basically it needs massively thorough testing to make sure it doesn't have any flaws. Otherwise, there goes the thing that's literally making your money, money.

Just a correction, Theymos has never contributed to bitcoin development at all and he also does not have any technical knowledge to have any valid vision of where Bitcoin should be.

If bitstamp indeed goes for BIP 101, then I will immediately withdraw all the money I have there

The previous stress test showed that even under a load of 100% full block for several days, most of the transactions are still not affected, this shows that the block size being full is not a dangerous thing, since humans are all adaptive, they will reschedule their transaction when banks are closed

The most important is to lay out a more reasonable scaling framework for the years to come

Another thought: Limiting the transaction capacity will help to reduce the amount of speculation, this is similar to Nasdaq reducing the trading frequency when there is a severe market crash. So to discourage speculation, the transaction capacity should be almost 50% full so that a sudden increase in transaction frequency can not be more than 100%

That's what makes the new time-locking operator so useful.

If users are using time-locked funds, the funds and the length they are locked for are available as information on the blockchain. That means that the total quantity of locked funds at any given time can be removed from traders calculations as to the liquidity available to the markets, i.e. traders will constantly know exactly how many Bitcoins can be traded and how many are locked, and use that figure to influence their trading decisions (the "trading availability" numbers will inevitably be diminished in respect of what traders know today, so it's bullish change)

I do agree that it will have an impact on those who are trying to spam Bitcoin with massive amounts of shitty dust transactions. And it surely will make Bitcoin more future proof, but this whole discussion / keyboard fighting is splitting the community in 2 parts and will cause severe damage if there isn't a solution where both sides are happy with. Pools are maestro, and the majority of them clearly don't want BIP 101.

Why isn't it a better idea to raise the blocksize to 2MB for now, and then increase it with 1MB per year to keep up with the natural growth of Bitcoin?

I believe bitcoin was created to be a trustless currency.  I'm a bit at a loss as to how and why the "trading market" is so relevant.  While a trustless currency can certainly be traded, that isn't its core function or something that it should need to be "regulated" to enable or normalize.  I'm also a bit at a loss as to how time-locked funds would help even if I could be convinced that the currency needed to be "regulated" for those purposes.  Specifically because traders are generally going to be looking at liquidity and trading volume based on buy/sell orders and completed trades as reported by brokerages that are most likely off-chain where margin can further blur reality, so lost funds (which can only be speculated about) and time-locked funds would have no impact.  Moreover, a single small transaction can include more bitcoin than a 1 MB block of transactions, so I am at a complete loss as to how blocksize has anything to do with trading liquidity / volume.

Assuming they are accurate, some of the facts discussed here may be helpful:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1273567.0

There are also opinions and perceived risks involved.  For instance, if the block size is increased 2MB for now and then 1MB per year, when should that stop?  What if the 1 MB / year outruns technology and we have to have another hard fork to discontinue it because we guessed wrong?  Is there even a proposal available to instigate that hard fork?  If we just hard fork to 2MB, then we will inevitably need to hard fork again (this may be argued for 8MB as well, but only on a much larger time table).

Me too, where did you get that idea from?

Mainly from the OP topic being BIP 101 and the post you were responding to talking about limiting transaction capability...  I wasn't implying that you agreed that block size would affect liquidity, but you certainly didn't suggest otherwise in your response to johnnyj.

The core developers should at least agree a 2MB block limit for the next year. Otherwise, the bicoin will not be used widely due to transaction limitations.

That's definitely a good point you have there. However, the BIP 101 will double from 8MB to 16MB after just two years. Which is even worse than the 1MB per year growth. One thing is for sure, this will probably not be solved within a reasonable amount of months. It will only cause more people to split up and join the BIP 101 or BIP 100 side. I hope the devs will find a good mid way solution that will end this discussion.