Bitcoin Forum

Well the title is a lie. Of course they can change and they already have changed in the past. But if this is bad news to you and you were lead to believe something else, don't fret, it's not all bad. Here, let me try and give you the bigger picture about rules in Bitcoin and who it is that you need to trust that they won't change to something you won't like.

First there's a myths that I want to address. I also want to make sure the community pays attention to this issue. Because as Ben Franklin told a woman the Americans got a republic if they can keep it (turns out they couldn't) so too I'm here to tell you that you have an excellent money system on your hands, if you can keep it.

Myth: Miners set the rules by voting

False. Miners do not vote, they validate. They check that transactions meet the rules and then they add them into a block and add it to the blockchain. If a subset of miners decide that a certain rule should be changed what happens ISN'T that all miners now validate transactions according to the new rule even if the subset has the majority of hashing power, instead a so called hard fork happens and some miners validate transactions that obey the new rules and those who stick with the old rules ignore them and by virtue of ignoring each other they split into two peer to peer networks.

But what if all miners suddenly switch to new rules? Can they do this? Is there something that stops them? Answer: YES, EVERY NON MINING FULL NODE

I mean this is critical for every Bitcoin user to understand. Bitcoin is a decentralized system, in which if you run a full node YOU HAVE A SAY in what rules are to be followed. Because once the miner adds a new block they send it around across the network and when it gets to you, your client also validates. It validates that the miner validated the transactions and added them into a block and into the blockchain following the right rules, rules that you gave your EXPLICIT consent to when you downloaded the Satoshi client. If all of the sudden all miners started validating according to some new rules, your client is coded to simply ignore them and as soon as just 1 miner following rules your client accepts as valid shows up, the network can continue to operate under these same rules.

The ONLY way for rules to ever change for you is if YOU PERSONALLY download a new client version with new rules. I cannot stress enough how important this is. This so important that it should be paramount for anyone who has any significant wealth in Bitcoin to run your own full node regardless of the costs that brings to you. I myself do it too even though I don't even use the client for anything else.

Now this doesn't mean you should never accept new rules in a new client. In fact you already did because those new rules solved a technical problem. But if you want to keep the Bitcoin money system running under the principles that it is built upon today (FINITENESS, TANGIBILITY, TRANSPARENCY, ANONYMITY, SECURITY, DECENTRALIZATION, SELF-OWNERSHIP, INTEGRITY, PRACTICALITY, RATIONALISM) it is paramount that any such rule changes do not immediately or down road preclude you from being able to run a full node. Because if you can't run a full node and you trust someone else to do it for you, then you have effectively given away your power to have say about what rules Bitcoin follows.

Right now you are a sovereign in Bitcoin. You should never give that up, under any circumstance.

What do I mean with sovereign? Well there's nothing anyone could possibly do that can make you accept rules you didn't agree with. Nothing. You yourself have to decide to consent to a rule change. But if running a full node becomes impossible for you then all that which you were told about Bitcoin, that rules virtually can't change, that it has a strict limit of 21million, ect, all these rules will then be left to be decided by a small number of super nodes and the people who control them. The second this becomes reality Bitcoin will be no different than simply a slightly more transparent Paypal. And if you don't want that you better make damn sure you can run a full node.

The client in it's current state is not a viable option for most people to run as a node in the not too far future. Both bandwidth and space issues will only intensify with further acceptance of Bitcoin. Thus either the client has to change with all that entails (such as developer decided rules changes) or more and more people will have to stop running a full node, when it's no longer viable for them.

How so? I have a laptop with 1TB space, and the block size limit means there's max 55GB that can be added in a year on avg, so how could I not run a full node for at least 5 more years when I'm sure I'm going to upgrade my laptop by then and have even more disk space available?

I like to have my memory refreshed from time to time, thanks hazek

You're priviledged in your space and bandwith capacity. What about those not so lucky? Those on volume capped lines? What about Africa, where most people outside of major cities still connect via 56k dial-up if even?

I understand the importance of running full nodes (I run 3 of them on dedicated servers).
But without incentives, total number of nodes will decay over time.
Besides the common benefit, any idea on how to make it more attractive going full ?

encore encore!

Thank you, OP. I completely agree.  That is why when I bring up the growing blockchain size, the response "use a thin client" does not work for me.  Everyone should run at least one full client.  And mine if possible.  But the growing blockchain size is a problem.  I would like very much to have a good way to split up the load of having a full node among multiple machines on my home network.

Then those who can't afford to run a full node right now are must understand that they are using Bitcoin without their explicit consent to what rules Bitcoin functions under. That their wealth is in the hands of those who can.

One solution to the trade off between the ability of running a full node and limited computing resources as the size of Bitcoin grows is to split the heavy lifting and public activites (downloading and verifying the whole blockchain) from the sensitive private activities (storing and managing of private keys and personal transactions) and have the two communicate over a secure encrypted connection. In this server client model what really matters is that both the server and the client are under the complete control of the individual; however they do not need to be in the same location or even in the same country as long as the connection between them is secure and encrypted.

Some examples:

1) One can set up a server at home and then connect to that server over a secure connection from a thin client on a mobile device.
2) One can lease a server running Free Software in a data centre, pay for it with Bitcoin, and then connect to the server over TOR from a location with poor internet access and high degrees of censorship.
 

The attractiveness is that you remain a sovereign in Bitcoin i.e. the pay off isn't material but of a different kind of value. I run it because this way I can ensure that the rules that govern my wealth are those that I agree with and that's enough of an inventive for me.

So this is basically the third thread about the max. Blocksize?

So how would the Blockchain be some over System like the FED-Line not violate those principles (FINITENESS, TANGIBILITY, TRANSPARENCY, ANONYMITY, SECURITY, DECENTRALIZATION, SELF-OWNERSHIP, INTEGRITY, PRACTICALITY, RATIONALISM).

Like I already said, if there where 180 Mil. Bitcoin users, that would allow one Blockchain transaction per User per Year. Directly meaning, that the average User would need to Use some kind of (centralised, intransparent, unanonimous, etc.) Provider and never be able to validate his BTC ownership on the Blockchain.

That can't be a solution.

Also, Disk space is already cheap and will become cheaper. It will still be possible for many users to run full nodes for a long time, ever if the space and bad with requirements increase.

I'm confused about what you are arguing. You want everyone to be able to always run a full node, correct? Can someone run a full node on a 56k modem right now indefinitely? The block chain will get bigger and bigger and that poor little laptop won't work. Are you suggesting we lower block size limits so that we can let these 56k modem users work? And if so, aren't you saying centralization will be okay because fees will cost too much to use it for regular transactions?

You've split your thoughts between a few posts and this is very confusing for someone who hasn't been following you around the forum.

Uh by all means increase the blocksize, I'll move on and have a long hard laugh at you guys during the grind to the bottom.
It will be the dumbest ever thing Bitcoiners have ever done.

It may not be and it may be that this is a design flaw in Bitcoin. But if a solution is found it will have to be one where there is no compromise on me being able to validate the rules used. If Bitcoin can't achieve that then I have no use for it.

Wrong. I want me to be able to validate the rules I consented to are followed and right now that means running a full node, I don't care about anybody else or how that is achieved.

Which includes a 1Mb block size limit?

at 10mio full nodes every transaction costs 1$ in disk space alone. everybody being a full node is only possible for small networks.

besided that, bitcoin has has nothing to do with your ideology. not every bitcoin user agrees with your principles and many likely never will. self-ownership my ass...

The sky is falling! Hard drive capacities are only 4TB and falling! Total internet bandwidth can only go down from here!  :P

Given the arguments on both sides that I have heard, yes.

Even if you don't run a full node, you can still exert you sovereignty to some extent by refusing to accept transactions that don't agree with your rules.  

If you are a major bitcoin business such as Mtgox, this alone will exert considerable pressure on the rest of the community to run full nodes that agree with your rules.

yay decentralization!  :D

Congratulations on being part of the 1%.

1% out of 7billion is enough to maintain the rules of Bitcoin. A few super nodes isn't.

But must one validate it on a mobile feature phone or on a computer with a 28.8kbs modem connection to the Internet? On can one use a thin client on those devices to connect securely to a server under ones control in another location to perform the validation? Raising the 1Mb block size limit is an absolute must in order for Bitcoin to be useful for any significant proportion of the world's population.

I would like to see a special box (bitcoin hardware full node) separate from the computer and work just as node storage and distribution blockchain with large HD connected to the network much like Samsung Chromebox but much cheaper with a very small power consumption and I can turned on 24 hours a day.

That's your opinion and you are free to consent to any rules you wish but I wont.


Interesting idea.

That seems precisely reversed / backward.

It is only if YOU allow a change to the rules YOUR full node accepts which change permits bandwidth and space attacks which the current rules absolutely prevent that further acceptance of Bitcoin could lead to bandwidth and space issues beyond the scale your normal everyday class of equipment running your existing full node can handle.

That is precisely because the current rules absolutely, totally, utterly do NOT permit ANY block to be larger than one megabyte and even with massive massive uptake of ASICs spewing out blocks faster than one per ten minutes that can only result in so many gigabytes per year that your full node needs to be ready to handle, while whatever class of machine and connection you are already successfully using to run a full node continues to increase in power.

For example if your machine has the normal mass-retail-system disk drive, check how large a normal mass retail system disk drive is today compared to how large a normal mass retail system was one year ago, two years ago, and so on. Basically the price of a "normal consumer grade machine" tends to stay about the same while what it is capable of is more and more each time you go shopping for a normal consumer grade machine.

Even if every block is the absolute maximum size, and uptake of ASICs keeps accelerating so that the maximum rate of increase of difficulty cannot keep blocks from being spewed out at an average rate that never manages to reach the full ten minutes the software tries to target, there is still every reason to suppose that whatever class of machine you are running a full node on, the machines of that class, of whatever future time we project forwards in time to, will be well able to handle it all.

The danger is that someone will lure you into agreeing to download and use a node that permits larger blocks, or that targets a faster time between blocks, or both, so that the fastest speed largest possible blocks scale outpaces the rate at which the class of equipment you are accustomed to using to run your full node grows naturally in the course of your normal day to day obsoleting of your computer hardware.

As it is, if you do not get sucked into changing the crucial limits in the code, you can probably expect to handle your node with the hardware that is handling it now for another few years, by which time normal consumer machines will be so much more powerful than what you are currently using that simply putting in whatever connection and disk drive is then the norm should do you for another few, or maybe even several, years.

It is all very safe currently. It is only if the lure of putting more and more eggs in one basket, as in people onto one blockchain, lures you into hacking at those hard limits built into the current software that you are in danger.

If instead of butchering the existing system you deploy more and more blockchains (which your node's ability to serve as primary chain for the merged-mining of is already programmed in), as many blockchains can be deployed as adoption of the blockchain based currency concept might require in order that all people who need or desire to perform transactions on a blockchain get to do so.

Very likely the more they pay for their transactions the more ancient and respected and secured - and full to the brim every block - the specific chain their comfort level of fees affords them the use of will be. The elite might prefer to pay massive fees for the cachet of utilising the primary chain, the original bitcoin; others might feel the fee level of that chain is too high thus prefer to use the first secondary chain, and so on right down to those who use the latest and leastest chain that demand has caused by any given date to have been added to the panoply of merged mined chains (that the biggest, richest miners are able to mine every one of all at once despite the large number of them...)

Basically, putting the chain you use now out of your reach can pretty much only be done by luring you into hacking at the hard limits that are there to ensure it remains forever within your reach; if at some level of mass demand for blockchain based currency some folk feel it is not fair that there is no room for them on that chain, so what, plenty more chains can be created and all of them secured together using the merged mining ability that is already in the code.

Be very very very cautious of any attempt to make you vulnerable to untenable-for-you bandwidth and space problems that people unwilling to pay the price of the adoption rate pressure they try to apply to you might try to convince you to let yourself in for by changing the limits that currently protect you from any quantity of "adoption pressure" they might try to pressure you with. There is no need to let the masses force you out of "your own" chain, the chain you are already running a full node of. If they need more transactions per day, let them deploy more merged-mined chains...

-MarkM-

The risk of blockchain size outpacing hard drive capacity is only a danger if you assume that all development currently underway to address this problem ceases: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88208.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88208.0)

Or if the hard limits increase faster than those efforts bear fruit.

-MarkM-

The current 1Mb block size limit places a limit on the Bitcoin network of 7 transactions per second or approximately 604,800 transactions a day. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability). If say 1% of the world's population say 90,000,000 people were to use Bitcoin they would have to wait on average 148 days for their transactions to clear. And this is for what purpose so that once can validate the blockchain over dialup? It is time to do some simple math here.

I like the dedicated box idea but I would prefer a client server model where one would connect to the box remotely using a dailup modem while keeping the sensitive encryption keys on the local device.

As I've said, I don't care how it's done, all I care is that I am able so be a sovereign Bitcoin user, meaning that rules can't change without my giving my explicit consent via downloading a new client. How this is solved technically is beyond my concerns.

And so finally it turns out that Bitcoin's gold might need a silver after all, and a nickle, and a copper, ...

Hashing power is only a piece of the large puzzle that makes up a successful fork.  Ultimately, it is about the exchange rate.  Every fork will have its own exchange rate.  Whichever has the higher value, people will migrate to.

Here's an interesting scenario.  Create a fork with no more block reward.  Given we are at about the half way mark to 21M, it should be worth double the value of the current bitcoin version.  Key word should be.  It would definitely get people's attention.

Now you are listening to arguments? Previously it was merely you signed up and want to keep it that way.

It sounds more like you don't want Bitcoin to get big? You're still very confusing.

People in a low bandwidth community, could easily pool together, and rent a dedicated server that they control and run a full node. Then the members of the community with low bandwidth could easily run a lite client especially now that we have the bloom filters working in the Satoshi client. They could have control of their FULL node, how the rules are applied, and could deal with block sizes larger than a meg.

I'm still confused on your argument. Why do you want Bitcoin not to change? You even started your post of confirming the fact that Bitcoin has already changed in the past. Shouldn't you just leave Bitcoin and make your own currency? One that can't change? If it has already changed in the past, why are you fighting so hard that it would never change again?

Not at all, there could be an easier solution by reducing the new blocks propagation time.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145066.0

Especially a change that has been anticipated and talked about since the very beginning:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347)

Raising the max block size was always part of the plan - it's what was always brought up whenever some bitcoin skeptic mention the low transaction rate. Now all of a sudden when the time is approaching to do it some people want to keep bitcoin limited to seven transactions per second.

A lot of the appearances of the word bitcoin in this thread might be more usefully replaced by the term blockchain based currency, or possibly one might limit that to lbockchain based currencies that can be merged mined alongside bitcoin.

There is absolutely no reason to have the masses running in and out of fort knox every day, but there is every reason to have them able to fire up the primary chain to check that their gold is still there, that it still has the properties they selected it for, that no one has snuck in some subtle timebomb, a change of hard limits or something that will in the long run deny them access by increasing the technical limits that made that particular chain appealing to them in the first place.

Hopefully the primary chain coins will be so valuable anyway that putting your yearly retirement savings in there once a year will be plenty enough transactions on that chain.

Multiple chains seems to me far more scalable, with far more ability to stick to the constants assigned to the particular chain.

All this fuss has in fact led me to think that putting lower limits initially when first deploying a chain than one intends as the permanent and final limits of of that chain, is not a good idea.

At one time I had thought hmm maube to get people initially into a new chain one might get uptake faster by pretend, baby values, to bait and switch people into thinking aha here is a currency my particular level of hardware and connection capability can handle, that I can confidently commit to for life, might be reasonable so that spammers in the earliest days could not immediately push the thing to its max size of blocks and max speed of blocks and max transaction fees and so on to scare people way, making them think oh gosh sounds nice but there is no way I am the kind of person who tends all my life to have that much computer power and connectivity at my fingertips.

So now I think we should be careful whenever deploying a chain not to dress it up in baby values to sucker people into thinking it is something it is not.

If we want to make a blockchain based currency suitable for Google, Mastercard, Visa, Amazon, Paypal, and so on and so on to all use for all their daily transactions and all their customers' daily transactions while every adult and child on the planet also uses it for all their lunch purchases and pocket money and penny-ante wagers we can look at how large we would need block size to be to accomplish that, but I do not think we should pretend that that "establishment megacorp-to-megacorp network" is a grass roots person to person, small enough footprint any normal machine anywhere might be one of the backbone servers "the man" is looking to "take down" power to the people network such as bitcoin was sold to us as being.

-MarkM-

From the mouth of satoshi himself!!



It wasn't needed then, but we are getting closer. Hmmm..... long live satoshi.

Value depends greatly on adoption rate, though, so it would start with a pretty low value.

Yes but low value is not necessarily a bad thing.

If primary chain coins reach a trillion dollars per coin, the 0.005 fee for transacting on it might very reasonably deter people from moving their trillions back and forth just for fun or practice, and also deter them from buying lunch and some rounds of drinks with them for the folks who happen to be at their favourite upscale restaurant-and-bar to show off their eliteness. Meanwhile they still might prefer to use a lower-fee chain, probably with lower value coins on it, when the Joneses are not watchng them waiting to be unimpressed.

Meanwhile I am now wondering just what kind of footprint you do actually need in order to slip under the radar of your local repressive regime while running your local fifth column's backbones?

-MarkM-

How are you gonna run an upscale restaurant and bar if no one comes by to show off?  ???

That may well be but me not being able to validate the rules I consented to are being followed most certainly wasn't.

I don't care how Bitcoin works, as long as principles I consented to are adhered to and one of those principles is that I can validate that the rules are being followed. I said in the OP I'm not opposed to rule changes per se, but I am opposed to rule change that would change that or the effects of which would inevitably change that.

I suspect it is more about exactly how much to increase the block size, including how many years the increase will give us before we end up relenting to yet another increase, then another, then another, then another, as the privileged and entitled and elite continue their normal expectable gameplan of disenfranchising everyone else.

Oh and maybe also forcing the footprint of a full node to such a scale that they can easily sniff out all resistance cells and free speech movements and dissidents and so on.

-MarkM-

http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Smell-Enhanced-Augmented-Reality.jpg

you are thinking about this the wrong way.
Dining at this restaurant would look like this and to enable micro-transactions with every bite you need tons of transactions/sec a good reason to use an alt-chain.

??

Is what mark is saying accurate?

This is the great thing about the current 1MiB blocksize cap: you can run a full node on a 56k dial-up connection. Yes, you'll have to get a copy of the blockchain somehow to start, probably by finding someone local with a copy, or getting a copy delivered to you on DVD's by mail, but once you have that copy a 56k dial-up modem is fast enough to keep up with the full blockchain. The real-world speed of a 56k modem is about 4KiB/second. On the other hand even if every single block is 1MiB that's only 1.7KiB/second. You'll have to leave your node running at least 50% of the time to keep up, and trying to mine using that node won't be practical due to the huge orphan rate, but it really is possible.

I don't think any discussion of Bitcoin development should be based on assumptions that it's important to listen to those with 56.6kbps modems. Bitcoin should not be designed around the lowest common denominator of technology, just to dictate that "everyone can run it."

It should be usable by most people, but there's no reason to get hung up about fringe use cases like 56.6 modems.

That's not what havock is arguing for although he uses that argument for his argument. He wants bitcoin exactly the way it is no ifs and or buts about it.

It may also be worth considering that the majority of those of us running a full node might be more amenable to arguments from reason than to intransigent positions allegedly taken on principle, but which more and more sound like someone's painted themselves into an intellectual corner.

56.6k modem is unreasonable.

I just want to make sure people understand that this isn't my argument at all. I don't care about those with 56.6k connections, I care about me. I don't care about the 1Mb limit, I care about me. I want to be a sovereign user of Bitcoin and I don't care about how that is achieved or what costs it carries. And if I can't get that from Bitcoin, I'm out.

It's really simple.

Nothing like a bit of fear mongering to get people upgrading and running the latest full client... ::)

Good riddance.

An excellent money system that can only handle 7 transactions per second. I think we are going to have to go with satoshi on this one.

Hmmmm, so discarding the 1MB limit is actually going to be the cause of the libertarian fringe leaving Bitcoin? And it will allow the Bitcoin economy to grow?

I'm liking this idea more and more by the minute!

hazek isn't arguing about 56.6 modems.

I think it's about balance. The thing is Bitcoin is billed as a currency that users can own, on their own. They don't have to trust anybody. The minute you start decreasing their ability to have a say (and check) of what goes on with the currency you've moved away from it being a currency they own on their own. That doesn't mean higher end users can't use it, but it pushes some people out.

To qualify as "grassroots" access I think you have to look at the typical technical capability of, say, average U.S. consumers. The world follows the U.S. as a benchmark on things (for example, see the Big Mac index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index)). So, you want to grab technical specs from there I think, if it's a goal at all.

That's not what hazek is arguing. He doesn't want the block size limit changed PERIOD. Ignore the fact that he can easily confirm 10x the limit today on whatever laptop he's using, it's as is or he's out.

False and it's exactly what I'm arguing and I've explained this so many times already that if you don't understand by now I simply cannot bother to do it again.

By increasing the limit by 1%, that decreases your ability to have a say and check it. And you're against that... wrong?

56.6 is a fringe case? You people want Bitcoin to replace all world currencies. Do you even know what the world looks like? How over 20% of the world live on less than a dollar per day? How 15% of the world do not even have access to running water? And you want them to employ bitcoin?

Funny enough, I totally understand Hazek. Ultra-Randian as he is, he only cares about bitcoin benefiting his own mores. And that's good and fine, at least he's honest about it. But if you follow that route, know you're only just rebuilding exactly the same system as we already have, only the faces have changed. And then bitcoin becomes not so much about freeing the people from the restraints current economic and political structures forces upon them. It is about becoming the new arbiter of constraints oneself. It's about abolishing "dictatorship" to become the new dictator instead. It's about Iznogoud becoming "Calife A La Place Du Calife". It's about people being butt-hurt they can't succeed in the current environment wanting to become the God-Emperor of Dune.

He isn't talking about users of bitcoin. he is talking about MINERS. Already mining is somewhat exclusive. Think someone living on a dollar a day with a 56k modem is going to be able to afford an ASIC? What he is saying is that rather than trying to cater to 100% of people who can mine... it's better for the bitcoin network to have the grunt work(mining) done by users with decent internet connections. (which already prevail in the developed world). Otherwise the bitcoin network can't succeed because if it becomes more popular... then the network itself will be a bottleneck.

So miners are the new banks. Fits exactly with my rant.  ;)

Think of it this way... with the current artificial restriction on block size there is a certain limit on the supply of transactions.  If more users use bitcoin (we all hope this right? Hopefully? ) Then that is more people competing to make transactions on the same network that is bottlenecked by a restriction. What this means is that it will cost more and MORE and MORE to simply make a transaction. You talk of eliminating people from being able to use bitcoin? That is the surest way to do it.

Clearly, there needs to be some sort of minimum requirements. Given that, there will always be people who cannot participate, since they do not meet the minimum requirements. Crippling Bitcoin by trying to creating accessibility for everyone is a fools errand. My personal opinion is that we should draw the line above dial-up. Sorry, but it's better to attack the problem of dial-up by societal pressure to upgrade their Internet connection rather than accommodating it in the Bitcoin protocol.

Besides, people have lousy Internet connections for economic and political reasons, not technical ones. The rise of Bitcoin as an alternative to the fiat banking monopoly should indirectly help with Internet access.

Big whoop. Unless you live self-sufficiently in the mountains, every last morsel of food, all your clothing and shelter and everything else that constitutes your livelihood comes only at the discretion of others. This is the modern economic reality, and by the way it is wonderful.

This myth that Bitcoin gives you total control over your money isn't helpful; you'll always be at the mercy of the herd - this is how civilization works, and this is how Bitcoin works. It is not the rules that give Bitcoin its stability and reliability, but rather the consistency over time in the beliefs and desires of those who participate in this social experiment.

This blocksize change will only be an problem if people manufacture one out of it.

Sheesh... When I brought up 56k modems, I stated quite clearly they are too slow to mine on, because the orphan rate would be way too high. However, they are fast enough to keep up with the chain, letting you validate it and make sure some centralized cartel of miners aren't trying to rip you off via inflation.

For an acceptably low orphan rate, say 2%, you need a much faster connection that a 56k modem, because you need to be able to download a whole block within a about 10 seconds.

+1 You are absolutely correct.

I have a lot of respect for Hazek, but if I read the OP correctly: that Bitcoin can't change unless 100% of its (full node) users agree, then it will lead to paralysis. In the worst case, because 100% agreement can never be achieved, Bitcoin will split into different coins, or fail completely. There needs to be some way forward even if a *small* percentage of users object. The real world is not perfect, in case some people are forgetting...

Nope, just the ethical central planner libertarians who think their interpretation of what is voluntary and what is coercive is the objectively best one. Rothbardians and Randians always encounter problems because of their moralizing, but Misesians and especially Hayekians can understand what Bitcoin is about. Bitcoin isn't about monetary sovereignty; it's about not having centralized power over money, allowing the free market to work. The idea of "objective" sovereignty is a minarchist holdover stuck in the old statist paradigm. In a stateless system the benefits are myriad, but being able to "control your own money" in the sense of controlling the system itself to any significant degree is not one of them. The endpoint of such reasoning is going off to live in the woods as a hermit. That is not what libertarianism is about.

No. Banks are the goliaths they are solely because they have the politicians in their back pockets. A Bitcoin mining lobby is a hard thing to imagine. This makes new entry prohibitive, not merely expensive. Watch "Bank of Dave."

I'd like to get back to the original post: could you please elaborate on what happens to a regular user after the fork? What if I stick with the previous version of full node client and others switch to the new one? Will I be able to transfer BTC to these users? Or does the fork mean that the current money supply gets divided between those two versions?

Yup. A non-trivial (more than a few percent on each side) mutually exclusive fork is the worst possible outcome for bitcoin. From one currency is two, and all older coins can be spent twice.  There are enormous incentives to achieve universal consensus one way or another.

These discussions are getting silly.

hazek, even if running a full node gets too expensive for you (which I don't think is likely), you don't have to pay for a node entirely by yourself. You can team up with other like minded people and split the costs. Using assurance contracts and a computer in a remote datacenter capable of trusted computing, you can even do it with people you don't know and don't trust. By the time this becomes an issue, the software to make all that easy will probably have existed for some time. If not then again, you can team up with other people and fund it. I'm sure many people would feel the same way as you and be willing to contribute.

But even at high transaction rates, the cost of a full node is not likely to exceed the spare funds of an employed person with a decent wage anytime soon. Not unless you believe Bitcoin will become more widely used than Visa in the next couple of years, which would be absurdly optimistic even by the standards of our community :)

People on 56k modems can of course use SPV clients even at high transaction rates. You know exactly what rules they are enforcing because, assuming you are patient enough to download web pages over your dialup connection, the ruleset being enforced by the miner majority will be documented somewhere! If you disagree with those rules, well, that sucks to be you because then you're no longer on the best chain even if you run a full node and are essentially using a different currency.

In short, even if Bitcoin becomes enormous, I can't see a time when hazek is unable to check what the rules are, even in the unlikely even that he is forced to rely on SPV mode.

Mike, like I said a hundred times already.. I don't care how it's solved and am willing to accept almost any rule change as long as I keep my Bitcoin sovereignty. That's all I care about.


BTW Bitcoin sovereignty doesn't mean I just want to be able to validate what rules are used when transactions are validated and blocks created and added to the blockchain. It means that these rules also can't change for me without me downloaded a new set. Right now it's extremely hard to do a hard fork if you don't have near complete consensus because of the economic ramifications. You need almost all users to agree. But once you take away full clients from merchants and regular users, rule changes can happen at any time because you don't need them to download anything anymore because they aren't actually validating anything anymore. Yes you can probably still spot a rule change, but you can't affect it by being part of the network and refusing to download a new client threatening a hard fork.


But hey, as I said, I don't care how this is achieved. If a light client can give me the same sovereignty, I don't care, as long as it does. As long as I have to give my explicit consent to a rule change, I'm happy.

This sovereignty you mean is mostly an illusion. The real power you have is that if the rules change in a way you don't like, you can sell your coins and go use another system that works the way you want. this is not substantially different from just sticking with the old version. The specifics do differ though. Whether you're actually validating things yourself only affects whether you have to trust what others say about the system or if you can verify it for yourself.

Which boils down to is it or is it not a zero-trust system?

I suppose you'd argue it is a limited entry level zero trust system, a system that is zero trust for the megacorps and any sufficiently wealhy nations or other sufficiently well heeled players, but for normal folks is just another trust the big boys / trust the grownups / trust Big Brother system?

-MarkM-

This!

But for this to really kick off, there should be an incentive, like the miners have an incentive. Any ideas? And we can finally close the book on the last hypothetical problem with BTC and go worldwide with this baby.

Precisely. Right now when I advertise Bitcoin I advertise it as zero trust. I'm afraid, if the little guy can't validate what rules are validated anymore, I wont be able to do so anymore and you can bet many many users will not like this at all to the point that they'll leave, just like I will.

We already have trust the big guys systems and look how that's working out. And if anyone is going to try and discredit this position as some sort of ideological grandstanding I invite you to look up the genesis block and read what Satoshi wrote in there and learn what exactly his motivation was when he started Bitcoin.

Maybe the incentive is "multiply the fee your local (or trusted, or least-hated, or least-distrusted) blockchain-audit corporation charges you for consultations regarding the verity of the blackchain by the number of such consultations you expect to or want to make, and compare that cost to the cost of running a node so that you can audit it yourself" ???

-MarkM-

This argument quickly reduces to bringing the goat to the market to trade it for potatoes. Zero trust is an illusion. Even now, you trust you'll have access to the means to access the internet (electricity, for example), and you trust that the internet won't blow up, rendering your bitcoins worthless.

It's about managing trust, not about reducing it to zero.

Zero trust of course meant zero trust in other people, not absolute zero trust..  ::) Do I really need to spell everything out?

Like the people who provide you with E-L-E-C-T-R-I-C-I-T-Y, or who run the I-N-T-E-R-N-E-T, among others?

Ugh...  ::)

Nah, generators can be bought or built, even ones that use wind or water instead of trusting the oill barons; and we can cobble together an IP network out of parallel port cables and serial port cables from igloo to igloo if we have to.

Or we can just buy our electricity and bandwidth from a different provider; plus we can audit/verify the number of kilowatt-hours we are getting, the quality of the alternating current's adherence to the number of cycles per second we ordered, and check that the blockchain our internet provider is giving us verifies and that the blocks it claims nodes out there somewhere are sending us verify. So we don't need to trust either of those providers, we can verify what they provide.

-MarkM-

I can't afford to read 100+ posts on this subject again, so I'll just address OP. Pardon me if I'm repeating something that has already been said.


Hazek,

It seems you want Bitcoin to be an absolute trust-free system to anyone, even people running lame machines which can't handle the number of transactions per second a serious payment network would generate.

But... how do you even know, for sure, that the code you're running really does implement the contract you claimed to have "signed"? Is it really trust-free? Or do you trust on the fact that, being open source, somebody with the skills to validate such code will do it, and the day some contract violation is inserted in the code, it would be quickly spotted by code-review? You see how that's not "trust-free" anymore? Very few people, even among computer specialists, are really capable of digesting Bitcoin source code. It's just a tiny "elite" if you will. And that's enough for you, for me, and for everybody else, apparently.

A 4000tps blockchain would be pretty much the same thing, with the difference that, considering how optimized Bitcoin is, it would be much easier to run a full validating node doing 4Ktps than it is to dig into Bitcoin source code and understand it. A much higher percentage of people will be capable of running full nodes than understanding the source. If you can trust the openness of the source code to provide enough reliability for you to use it, why can't you trust the openness of the blockchain to provide the same reliability? Actually, with some effort and expanses, you'd likely be able to finance a 4Ktps full node only for the purpose of validating the chain yourself. Or, at least, get together with like-minded people and finance a full node for that purpose.

Take wikipedia for instance. It's gigantic, fully supported by its supporters donations, and some researchers claim it is more reliable than old-fashion encyclopedias. Nobody can validate its entire content. For every complex article on a particular topic, only a small minority of people in the world have the knowledge to keep it correct, and from these people, only an even smaller minority will actually do it. Yet, it's openness provide this great reliability: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

The blockchain is open, and as such, it can be validated by anyone with the means to. That's more than enough to trust it not to change to something "evil" without major repercussion.

Nope. Just me.


Peer review + github making it extremely easy to spot.


Because I'm not a peer anymore and I have no say in what the rules are anymore. Right now if the network wants to keep me as a blockchain validating, transaction propagating, block validating peer, they need my consent to download a new client. If I can't be such a peer anymore the network will give a rats ass about what I want because they'll control all the peers.


Well there's the rub then isn't. What if just a very small group of people has these means? retep seems to make a pretty good case for exactly that happening if the block size limit is increased.

Also, even though I would be surprised if I woke up tommorow to find that bitcoins had gone up to $1000 per coin, I would not be surprised if a whole lot of people's idea of how high a full-node bar could "reasonably" go suddenly jumped upward, maybe quite a bit.

So I think if the people who claim to "need" a larger block size limit to accomodate the lucrative large numbers of users they plan to bring into the system (but cannot bring in today due to the block size limit being in their way) put their "need" quantitatively into bitcoin by buying more bitcoins that could help a whole lot.

How much per bitcoin worth of people are you planning to bring in? Isn't it in your interest to hold lots of coins already yourself before bringing them in? Show how determined you are to bring them in by putting your money in the blockchain and quite possibly that will grease the wheels of upward blocksize movement quite a bit...

...And I have to admit, recent exchange rate trends do seem to indicate serious interest, and are every day making larger and larger upgrades of hardware and bandwidth look "reasonable"...

On the other hand, we hit $32 before on less transactions / smaller blocks than it is taking now to get there, so current levels don't really seem to compellingly call for more block size than we had last time we hit $32. :) ;)

-MarkM-

Even in retep "successful dumping" scenario, it would still be easier to have a full node than to understand the entire complexity of bitcoin source code.

But... wait, even you believe in "dumping techniques to rule out competitors"? Seriously?


Are you a peer in Bitcoin development? Do you review and understand each line of the source code?


No, they can't give a "rats ass", that's what I'm trying to say. Seriously, just look the amount of noise any little thing can provoke around here. The same way that would be extremely difficult to get away with silently tampering the source code, it would be extremely difficult to get away with silently tampering with the blockchain. Actually the latter would likely be more difficult (without having >50% of course). Every attempt to change anything would have to be open and public, and once again you'd have your freedom to choose without being lied to.

Thanks Hazek. Brilliant post. We, the users, want to be able to run full nodes. That's bitcoin, and that's why we are in.

Good! Now hold bitcoins, enough bitcoins that if exchange rates continue to grow as fast as people want the max block size to grow you'll not find the cost of the stuff you'll need to be a full node "unreasonably" expensive. :)

-MarkM-

No. You will never convince me this is true. What the monetary authorities in the world today do is all pretty much open and for everyone to see and yet people don't care. Bitcoin is different, there are no monetary authorities and I don't want there to be any, ever. Otherwise I just don't have a use for Bitcoin.

If this isn't the case, or wont be the case that there is no central authority then I'm done and will sell my bitcoins immediately and move on to better things. So please do let me know if I'm mistaken in thinking that there is no central authority right now.

+1

Also, running a MOBILE full node is bullshit. If someone wants to run a full node, individuals should set up a home base and VPN into that if they need to validate a transaction. (It also helps with keeping the blockchain in sync and avoid delay times during the validation process).

So by virtue of "drawing" a line, we should only consider workstation solutions, not laptops, phones and stuff.

There is also the possibility to host your own validation node in the cloud. However, cloud services are not decentralized enough, so I'd be wary of that option.

And you really think the masses care about Bitcoin non-inflationary nature? You're the minority there, my friend!

A thing that people do care, though, is relative appreciation of currencies. They tend to migrate their money toward safer currencies. Just check how the Swiss Franc was going up in value before being tied to the euro. But people don't really understand monetary policy, and most that eventually accept using Bitcoin, will either be due to its appreciation, or because it's cheaper, or due to its privacy, or due to its censorship-resistance etc. The majority of people don't even know what "monetary policy" is.


Please, are you claiming that letting bitcoin be useful to millions by dropping this hard limit of 7tps would create a "central authority"? First you believe in 'dumping techniques', now this? Do you realize what "central authority" actually means? Do you understand that Google, for instance, is not a central-authority of internet search and videos? And that it would be practically impossible for a single pool operator to aggregate the same "market share" in bitcoin mining than Google has in internet search and video?

Where are you taking these fears from? I thought you were more versed in economics. You're sounding like people who have never heard of spontaneous order.

+1

The ideas about this are so spread out. Search my posts in the other thread for the full details, but a 10 meg block, miners could still do that today. That's a 10x increase over current limits and sets the TPS in line with Paypal. The average user can easily download a 10 meg block every 10 minutes and verify the chain. That's not a 10 meg block 24/7, that's just at peak when we eventually get there. Unless something crazy happens, that will be several years.

56k modem couldn't keep up with the block chain. It would take them 20-30 minutes to download a full block. Someone on 256k DSL shouldn't have a problem running a full node if every block were jam packed full. They couldn't mine, but they could with 100% certainty verify the block chain.

And there would still be NOTHING stopping a group of peers or even just by themselves from renting a VPS for $15 a month, and running a full node and using a light client with bloom filters. In places like Africa, that might be the cheaper way to do it and is still a valid option at 10 meg block sizes.

hazek, I had your notion of "sovereignty" from this thread in mind when I wrote this post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144895.msg1545885#msg1545885 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144895.msg1545885#msg1545885)

It appears to be achievable with an SPV client to a similar degree that most people currently achieve it with a fully validating client.  I don't see any reason why even smart phone clients can't be "sovereign", at least practically speaking.

Great. Like I said I don't care how it's done, just that it is.

Some of my view:

Fast online payment is just an additional feature for bitcoin, not core value, and it will never be. People comes to bitcoin because of it's value (generated from its unique properties), not because it is 2% cheaper than CC (with CC consumer have the advantage of performing a charge back if the seller is a scammer), people will spend fiat instead of bitcoin since they know the value of fiat is going down constantly and btc price will rise in long term, if bitcoin's value holds, they even can get a fiat loan backed by bitcoin and spend

If we really reached the status that many transaction can not be done quickly, then satoshi's idea about "phase in the change" is a good implementation approach, and it may require several intermediate versions, the process should take at least one year. But the core question now is wether we really need such a change

Actually many people here are just hoarding coins, there are not really a lot of transactions happening everyday, especially miners who connected to a pool. If we remove satoshi-dice, I think at least in the latest 2 years it will still work fine. Satoshi-dice is just an execellent example of no matter how big the block size is, there will be applications flood that space with meaningless transactions

A fork means the amount of coin will get doubled immediately, a 100% inflation in the whole system, and this directly destroyed the promise of there will never be more than 21 million coin. If this happens once, it will happen again, then bitcoin is not in any way better than fiat today, just the inflation control has been shifted from FED to a couple of programmers, people won't have incentive to hold their coins, they will sell before these programmers come up with a new idea to improve bitcoin and inflate the system again with new coins

Bitcoin is not only some software code, it is a spirit, if it split itself into two personality, then it essentially lost the soul

This is not correct.  The coins on the two chains will not have the same properties and will not be valued the same.

And now imagine Satoshi-dice translated in 100 languages and used daily by 100 million people. And now imagine imagine another 100 Satoshi-dice type of service. That's going to be a problem, no matter how big the block size is.

There are people out there with whom things that go up in value faster than inflation, faster than a savings account, faster than pretty much anything short of a Ponzi, are not popular, it is true. It is a large part of why some communities on the web are very fond of claiming bitcoin is itself a ponzi. But long term I suspect what drove us down from $2 last time around was not people's lack of interest in small block size cryptocurrencies but, rather, the massive onslaught of major hacks and the lack of time tested value storing utility that left us short of past performance evidence with which to refute the "bitcoin is a ponzi" / "bitcoin is a scam" claims so many vocal detractors were making.

Blockchains are not ideal for retail sales payment processing, but for large transfers with small percentage fees they should be reasonably competitive.

Since we do not know which, if any, output of a transaction is change, nor even if a transaction with between someone and themself rather than someone and someone else, we really only have the price per bitcoin on exchanges and the number of bitcoins paid in transaction fees go by in measuring useful (as in paying for our infrastructure and operating -expenses) adoption.

We need to be adopted by money. Lots of money. People are less and less important in that regard the less and less money they bring in. The more money they bring in the more in fees and/or more in exchange rates, provided circulation involves fees. CIrculation that does not provide fees is mere churn, not useful in paying for the infrastructuire and operating-expenses of the network.

We should be looking to retain value, to store value, not to throw it away to freeloaders in the form of free transactions nor increase the cost of storing it by catering to decipayments nor even decapayments. We should aim at the centapayments and kilopayments markets not the centipayments and millipayments markets.

Lets store amounts of value that are actually worth going to the trouble and expense of storing them, while providing also the ability to transfer such amounts in and out of storage.

-MarkM-

 

First, I have a really hard time reading and understanding your posts... I usually skip over them.
 
" Blockchains are not ideal for retail sales payment processing, but for large transfers with small percentage fees they should be reasonably competitive."

 So reddit, mega, wordpress are not what bitcoin is meant for? That's what you are saying because those are all retail transactions baby. If bitcoin isn't "meant for" small transactions it's only because there is a minority of people that want to keep an artificially low transaction limit. And I don't even think those people are miners (or bitcoin miners) . I think they just want bitcoin to fail for whatever reason. Maybe they own a bunch of litecoins .

Agreed.  Bitcoin is how it is used. Crippling it because you don't like how it's used means you want it to fail.

The recent chatter about it has given me extra incentive to explore cracking open some of my dusty deep storage wallets.

If we stay on the current price trend I'll probably want to dump around $12k worth of BTC in a month or so, and do it face-to-face, incrementally, in a bank, and in the NW part of the US.  I'm willing to take a certain amount of a hit in order to avoid supplying Mt. Gox with an identity theft kit.  Almost all my coins came through Tradehill.  Anyone who is potentially interested is welcome to PM me.

---

BTW, good post ~hazek.  I agree significantly with most of it.

I think mobile (smartphones) is going to take up internet in Africa. They can already pay their bills via SMS. Africa is a different animal than the rest of the world when it comes to internet. Eventually mobile will take over in every country.

I don't understand the argument some people are making that the block size limit is OK because the main chain will only be used for relatively rare high-value transactions while new blockchains will arise to serve the masses.  Why would Bitcoins on the main blockchain hold their value if new blockchains are popping up left and right?  A few die-hard curmudgeons who don't want to change the rules isn't enough to keep the market price propped up.

You idiot.

You really didn't understand anything did you? Did you even read my OP? Did you understand what it was about? It's not about a rule change btw..


The problem isn't that we, as you call us "A few die-hard curmudgeons who don't want to change the rules", don't want to change any rules. The problem is that this particular rule change is likely going to have consequences that will change Bitcoin from what it is today to something else. Right now Bitcoin is a decentralized peer to peer payment system and a currency without a central authority. By removing the block size limit there is a very real chance it will change into a centralized payment system with a currency with a central authority, a system that you no longer have any control over like you do right now.

If you're fine with that, then I don't understand what you're doing here. Paypal meets your how many transactions you think Bitcoin is suppose to handle on a daily basis just fine. Just don't cry to them if you don't like their rules because if you let Bitcoin become impossible to be in your personal control that's exactly what will happen, other rules that you wont like.

And that, you idiot, is the point of my OP. To remind people that if you can't somehow validate what rules are being validated on the network, if you aren't an equal peer on this network, you don't matter and what you want doesn't matter.

But, what is the point of having control of your node if it's following a set of rules that doesn't scale to global significance?  With the transaction-rate limit I don't see how Bitcoin can grow beyond a relatively small segment of the online transaction market  Eventually, something else will come along that scales better, and people (including you maybe) will abandon Bitcoin.

In the worst imaginable case, the ability to validate the currency becomes more expensive, not impossible. As long as it is not impossible, Bitcoin does not become a centralized payment system and you still have sovereign control over your money. Its still peer to peer, at worse its peer group to peer group. Of course this won't happen, because the devs are well aware of the dangers and are reasonable people who continue to put the technology and its users first. Reasonable people can come to compromises that provide for the greatest benefit for all parties.

To your other point, Paypal is a shitty comparison that does not meet people's needs because

A) My funds can be seized
B) I cannot send money to people in specific countries
C) It is not pseudo anonymous
D) The fees are too high to enable micro transactions
E) The fees are too high to provide adequate competition with other merchant processors
F) Paypal places artificial limits on withdrawals
G) Paypal can be much slower than Bitcoin despite being centralized
H) I have absolutely no say in any rule changes that Paypal makes

People saying that Bitcoin shouldn't aim to replace Paypal have no idea how badly Paypal sucks and how much better for humanity a solid Paypal competitor with Bitcoins advantages would be. Nor do they seem to understand or care about how much more important of a disruption that would represent than the "just slightly cheaper" wire replacement service that Bitcoin is designed to become with a hard block size limit of 7 transactions per second.  

I know you want and demand sovereign control over your money. I do not believe that is in any danger.

"Soveriegn control of one's money" may be a desirable property, sure, but not if the value of that money eventually collapses because its protocol isn't scalable and so people abandon it.  

Right. And if it becomes expensive to issue a Bitcoin transaction, solely because through a non scaling limit the entire world can only perform 7 per second, the value of the technology which currently allows for almost free almost instantaneous money transfers to anyone will collapse. Bitcoin is becoming more valuable because of integration of industry, and that stops it in its tracks.

In my estimation, those who are interested in bitcoin technology itself (blockchain/transaction/mining etc) are almost all here, it is impossible in today's internet world that after 4 years of introduction and many times of media coverage, there are still some people in the world who have the potential to become a true bitcoiner and he has never started his mining operation

So from this point forward, the technical user base will not expand that much, and the late adapters will unlikely to have a full node installed, web based services will become popular, and they will provide a service similar to bank today (they only provide saving and transaction service with a fee)

Once the majority of people are using web based services, many retail level transactions will just be cleared inside these system without go through the blockchain, and the end user don't even need to know public key/sha256 such kind of tech noise, what they only need to know is that total amount of bitcoin is fixed by protocol and supply is decreasing

Fractional reserve banking will be very unlikely to happen, since the bitcoin is deflative. Bitcoin borrower will take a very high risk, it is a common sense to borrow the inflative currency and buy the deflative currency

Have you compared the value of coin on the Satoshi blockchain with coin on the other blockchains?

I'm not myself claiming that alternative chains would be successful; I'm referring to some earlier posters' assertion on this thread that the demand for higher transaction rates would be met by new parallel blockchains popping up (once block space on the main chain becomes too scarce).  My claim is that, IF new chains were starting to become very widely used (as they would have to be to maintain a high transaction rate), there is no particular reason why coins on the main chain would continue to remain much more valuable than coins on the new chains in that scenario.  And if the overall supply of coins (on all widely-used chains) goes up, that is overall money-supply inflation, which would tend to depress the value of existing coins further.  IMHO, it would be very undesirable for the value of BTC to allow a lot of competing cryptocurrencies to pop up and be successful.  A good way to let that undesirable outcome happen would be to fail to upgrade Bitcoin to support some critical property that is (or soon will be) in high demand, such as scalability to high transaction rates.

Yes. And I wonder how long it will take for one of the new alt-chains to replicate all the features of bitcoin except it also offers 20Mb blocks...?

It's too early to talk about global significance, bitcoin is not going to heaven

Current hype will over when most of miners have migrated to ASIC devices, from then on there won't be fast expansion of hashing power and the price of bitcoin will not rise that fast as it doing now

And bitcoin have a long road to go before it reach widely acceptance, transaction capacity is such a small issue if you consider so many  legal and human factors. Even today, when I talk to my computer scientists friends in multinational company, most of them still doubt it is a scam, they have a good income and a good life, they might never care about this little thing

On the contrary, if it really gained mainstream acceptance and acknowledgement from government, there will be banks and institutions waiting in the line to solve this transaction problem with their existing mature and sophiscated clearing system, bitcoin will become a new digital gold standard. Do you really need to use a tiny bit of gold to buy milk?

If you are really that service minded, then you should consider remove the 21 million supply limit, and adjust the daily supply to keep the exchange rate fixed at $21,  then the merchants will feel safe to use bitcoin due to lower exchange rate risk

I had a strong impression that bitcoiners are so proud of the limited supply nature and I'm convinced this is really a different view in today's world, and I hope they are not walking towards a direction what everyone familiar: overproduction, plenty of supply and cheap

Nice post, thanks.

It seems to me there is both a lot of underestimation of bitcoin's agility and way too much tendency to hurrah "the sharks are starting to notice us, hooray!" while worrying nervously "so we'd better throw away our shark tank else they might not find us appetising!"

-MarkM-

There may not be a point in having such a Bitcoin, maybe this is actually a flaw that was overlooked, that this decentralized system isn't capable of scaling, maybe another solution must be fund where it scales but where peers, maybe without the full blockchain, can still be equal peers (if that's possible).

I don't know. All I know is that I want a decentralized Bitcoin that I was promissed when I found it and be an equal peer in the network. If that isn't possible then I have no use for Bitcoin.

The second Bitcoin becomes centralized, all those things can arbitrarily change and I have almost no doubt they would change sooner rather than latter when the government comes knocking. You seem to forget that Bitcoin offers these rules only because there are no doors for the government to come knocking on, point guns at people's faces and demand them be changed, it's just peers in a network. Not so anymore in a centralized network.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, hazek.


What makes you so sure that this is the case? Everyone can be corrupted. And given the personality pattern I've observed from part of the TBF members, I'd suppose they're even more prone to corruption than the average Joe. But I don't expect the majority to agree with that.

I feel at some not so distant point in future I'll be forced to evaluate alternatives to Bitcoin, because Bitcoin's features I've enthusiastically embraced in the beginning will have been changed beyond recognition.

Because if the core devs become corrupter, the users of the community will not accept a fork to centralization. The 50 threads about block size limit changes are stupid. You've got a dozen people crying don't destroy bitcoin and they don't know WTF they are talking about.

I do know this, the people investing real money in Bitcoin related companies and technologies aren't doing it because they believe that its going to be a system that can only handle 7 transactions per second forever.

A wire transfer replacement technology that can only be used for high value transactions (because of high transaction costs due to artificially limited number of transactions) where the value following a transaction THEN has to be converted into another currency (since its now too expensive to spend in Bitcoins), is worth less than the current "market cap" of $300,000,000.00 that Bitcoin currently has.

Its not even digital gold at that point... I can trade a piece of physical gold for free.

Bitcoin will always be massively decentralized with thousands of full nodes. Just because I can't currently run a full node on my smart phone doesn't mean that it isn't decentralized. If someone can't run a full node through a 56.6k modem connection routed through TOR that doesn't mean that bitcoin isnt still massively decentralized.

The problem of finding max block size based on some type of network consensus (consisting of full nodes) will ultimately be solved, just as the solution of adjusting difficulty solved the problem of hashing power increases.

I wonder if it might be possible to decentralise the validation process itself, in a way that lets the blockchain become much bigger, but with spotting when rules are being violated remaining cheap?

I'm thinking of mathematical proof-of-correctness tools. (Disclaimer: I don't know much about the contemporary details of such beasts. I played with one called "Lego" a long time ago... there are probably better ones now.) The idea is, a future giant blockchain would be distributed (peer-to-peer torrented) in the syntax of a giant theorem: "THEOREM 0. Under rule-set R, the genesis block is valid. PROOF: blah blah blah. THEOREM 1: Under rule-set R, if block 0 is valid then block 1 is valid. PROOF: blah blah blah. THEOREM 2: Under rule-set R, if blocks 0 and 1 are valid then block 2 is valid. PROOF: blah blah blah. (and so on)"

The proof syntax would have the "wrongness is locally detectable" property (achieved by bounded fan-in and fan-out of the dependency of parts of it on other parts). That is, if any part of the proof was wrong, either by incompetence or malice on the part of a "super-miner", the community could detect this wrongness without any one member of the community having to parse their way through the whole thing. Sceptical community members would simply point their mathematical proof-of-correctness tool at any randomly chosen part of the giant proof object; and it only takes one person to strike lucky, and alight upon the invalid part, for the wrongness to be detectable (and exhibitable to others) extremely cheaply. The news would of course then spread like wildfire. (Through Tor-like channels, if necessary in some societies.)

The consequence once the news had spread? Blocks later than the point of invalidity would then be rejected by everyone following rule-set R, even though no one of them had (within their own node) the resources to parse the whole thing from beginning to end single-handedly.

I don't know if this would meet the "self-ownership" requirements of the OP. (There might, for example, be a worry along the lines of "How do I know that this giant proof object is a proper translation of the raw blockchain, and not an imposter?". Hopefully, though, the translation process itself would be of a "wrongness is locally detectable" character.) And I wouldn't like to try and judge if this is feasible with today's proof tools - they do have a reputation for being rather slow and clumsy in their main application, proof of correctness of code (or of chip architectures). Others more knowledgeable than me might care to comment on feasibility. At any rate, I offer this idea as something for people to think about!

(disclaimer: I skimmed most of the thread, sorry if this is posted already)

hazek, wouldn't you still retain the same sovereignty you have today if the blocksize is somehow (an algorithmic code change that's agreed to now/once) changed periodically to at least roughly keep pace with Moore's law?

Obviously the details get technical and are important (and gotta consider the down-the-road case where transaction volume is mature and *not* increasing geometrically), but I think it's also important to understand there's a middle ground between keeping it at 1MB and raising the blocksize so much that small guys can't run a full node (as a full node works today).

But you can't divide it into 10,000,000 pieces. And it's not so easy for someone say in Turkey to get his gold coin to a dude in Vancouver.

There is no purpose in dividing it into 10,000,000 pieces if it costs more to transfer those pieces then they are worth.

Well it depends on which "smaller chain" people give their blessing to. In the alt-coin world a lot of chains have come and go- without affecting Bitcoin in anyway.


There actually already is another chain that could be perfect for running as a parallel chain- Terracoin. It's been around a few months and is pretty much a straight copy of bitcoin, with shorter block times (2 minutes), faster diff retarget, lower reward that halves every 4 years (20TRC per block). It's updated by adding the new patches for bitcoin, so it keeps the same consistency with bitcoin as well in terms of security and reliability. The address format is even the same- so there is no need to migrate addresses, your Private key for bitcoin yields the same private key for Terracoin. Although at first some people thought this would lead to confusion, the result has been the opposite. One Public key works for both TRC and BTC, making it very convenient.

The chain is young enough that an increased block size could probably be implemented without much trouble, or so many users to disturb. There is even talk about having it merge-mined to boost its security.

Currently it's traded at Vircurex, Bitparking and Zaptos exchanges. There are several Satoshi Dice like sites, and even an 'instawallet' that is in beta development. It has it's own forums as well: www.terracointalk.org (because the alt-forum is a bit of a cesspool).

Perhaps terracoin would be fertile soil to test some of these ideas? The user base is very open to testing new ideas.

Presumably Terracoin probably has a one-megabyte max block size, like Bitcoin?

Litecoin too has more blocks per span of time, and probably also has one-megabyte max block size.

The fact that there has not yet been a mass exodus of capital to such chains seems to indicate that unproven, theoretical ability to handle more transactions per span of time, even along with faster confirmation times, is not a big enough deal to even be worth speculating serious amounts of capital on.

-MarkM-

I can't imagine why capital would leave bitcoin in mass-exodus only because of block times and block-sizes. I presume people would move slowly and only ever partially. That said, I don't think at the moment block times and block size are really a driving force between most peoples interest in bitcoin.

Yet there do seem to be people who have a vested interest of some kind in increasing the maximum block size beyond what current nodes are comfortable with yet are seemingly also not willing or able to even come up with enough paying transactions per day to demonstrate a real need* and simultaneously demonstrate the network can even handle the current maximum.

* Some economist wrote that demand and want, or demand and desire, are totally different creatures. Want and desire are subjective, demand is objective, it is quantifiable, it is an actual number of units of some unit of account, actual dollars and cents or actual bitcoins, that kind of thing. Would it be reasonable to suggest that "need" should be measurable, like "demand", rather than being just some lobby group or chatty geek in Botswana's wish or desire or dream or hope type of thing?

-MarkM-

are you claiming that hazek doesn't own himself?

Okay... and those points are mutually dependent. It's still hard for you quickly transfer a full gold coin across the ocean.

they dont need to understand bitcoin inorder to understand that a promise was made to them. a promise that, for better or worse, the fundamental rules of the currency were concrete. let alternative cryptocurrencies solve this for us if it is infact a problem (which i think i can make a very good case for why it isnt).

Those of us who where paying attention in 2010 were promised the block size limitation was a temporary anti-flooding rule that would be removed when it was no longer needed so that Bitcoin could indeed support higher transaction rates.

If the devs changed their minds between now and then they should openly admit this. Publicly say the original plan changed, and why.  Stop lying by claiming 1 megabyte blocks were originally intended as an economic feature when anyone can debunk this by reading the old threads.

What's most appalling about this debate is the blatant dishonesty by those in favour of leaving the limits in place, even reaching up to some of the most prominent developers. Observing that dishonesty and evasion raises grave doubts in me about the viability of the project, much more so than any external attack.

Yes.

We need to find out how large of a block size the network can support 24/7, every block that large, without problems. If it does cause problems, that is flooding, which is what that limit absolutely protects us against.

-MarkM-

Since Hazek isn't very explicit, ill summarise his point.

Hazek wants to ensure that he can run a full node with whatever hardware/network he posses at that time without having to fork out additional funds or make special group funding arrangements to host a node in a datacenter.

Personally i can accept a Block size increase as long as a low end commodity PC with an average broadband connection can run as a full node(Should cover 90% of people with PCs). Note that miners will need a much faster connection than full nodes to reduce orphan rates + investment in ASICs.

CPU wise, this is not a problem today, nor will it ever be. You could run a full node on your average low-end smartphone CPU. Even if we were to scale block size by 100x, your average CPU could handle it(Not for mining, as speed is paramount in mining). Plus if need be, much of the intensive processing could be offloaded to the GPU.

Disk Space wise, an increase of block size by 100x would not be an issue once pruning is implemented. Big Bitcoin businesses and block chain explorers could run archival nodes which provide all blocks.

Network wise,  256Kbps could keep up with a 10MB block size if it were running 24/7. For a 1Mbps connection, you would need to run it 6hrs a day.

As we can see the network connection is the biggest hindrance to increasing block size, but a 10MB block size would still allow the majority of people to run full nodes. The biggest problems will be faced by miners who will not be able to compete with the bigger miners/pools due to connection speed. Which after some thinking, is fine as long as we have people running full nodes to "vote"(not relaying) against any predatory changes that large mining pools may introduce.

Many of us have felt that Bitcoin was advertised as a peer-2-peer solution where a large percentage of the participants in the economy were capable of being peers.  'peers' were never advertised as being people who could afford datacenter resources, and many of us to not trust a solution which requires such resources in order to function.

So, one group was sold a bill of goods, and unfortunately a lot of people in either group bought it.  Whether this 'false advertising' was deliberate I don't know and largely doubt.  I expect that even for those who did recognize the issue, kicking the can down the road was the path of least resistance.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=84247.msg933058#msg933058


For my part, I feel more comfortable with a solution in which decisions are made in a transparent manner even if it means that people who have different points of view than my own have a voice.  I think it is possible to hold a variety of competing points of view without being 'dishonest'.

Hiding or discounting one point of view and decision making processes would create the most doubt in my mind.

Also consider most so called "miners", or many many of them anyway, are actually just "hashers" who never see a block...

...So maybe we should make that really clear, so people aaren't thinking they cannot fill their house with coffeewarmers or run a few mini-rigs in their basement or even some full rigs in their garage, or heck, all the above.

Just being a "hasher" is pretty much trivial bandwidth needed, yes?

-MarkM-

Every one of your posts exudes such a slimy malignancy that I want to take a shower after reading them.

Well as I always say "If it feels good, do it."

Oh, and don't forget about the 'ignore' button over on the left there.

This.

Thank you! That's what I wanted to see, some explicit numbers and general conclusions, including compartmentalizing issues.


Yes, network connection is the one potential sticking point I see for home-based full nodes too.

Project much?

...if the bitcoin rules don't change, Bitcoin will be renamed to UselesslySlowCoin, and all the dolts thinking they're gonna cash in on transaction fees for UselesslySlowCoin will realize they have killed their cash cow via artificial scarcity...

So much for the revolutionary thinking that makes Bitcoin Bitcoin...I feel rather harsh disdain for those who wish to kill society's chance at having an open and robust payment network that can actually replace banks because they think they scan squeeze a few more dollars out of someone. A limit of 7 transactions per second will mean BITCOIN WILL NEVER REPLACE BANKS!  In fact, it will never replace PayPal.

I thought we'd got that. Is there anyone who still didn't?

Since then its been more about how fast to raise it than about whether to raise it,

plus me saying any increase should never be undone (barring global catastrophe).

(Thus, no adaptive reduction; adapt up if you must, but down is a no-no.)

(Thus be careful with increase: never increase more than you are ready and willing to handle 24/7 every block thereafter forever.)

-MarkM-

I don't know about others, but I don't stand to make a dime on whatever transaction fees and what-not you are talking about.  I'll only mine if I feel the system is at risk, and in that case I expect to absorb the cost out-of-pocket.

I do stand to lose quite a bit monetarily if the system is subverted and I do care about that both for personal and for philosophical reasons.


Firstly, anyone thinking about 'replacing the banks' and 'replacing PayPal' better come prepared.  I think that most in the Bitcoin community are anything but prepared for what lies down that road.  We are likely starting to appear on the distant horizon for these folks, and certain other tangential threats are starting to appear.  This is why I care so deeply about the subject at this time.

Secondly, trying to compete head-on is, in my opinion, not the way to do it.  I'll bet most of my BTC (literally) that we end up smashed like bug if we try, and not only that but there will be massive collateral damage as well.

Thirdly, I have no interest in Bitcoin replacing VISA or PayPal if the results are even less desirable that what these folks already supply.  That also strikes me as a very real possibility.

Huh. I think this just nailed it for me.

The blocks will fill up, whatever size they are. This is simply human nature's approach to computing technology. Rewriting the rules to expand the size in the hopes of mitigating that is a task that will never end; there will be new calls for a larger block size every year, and before we know it, we'll be outpacing Moore's Law and slowly turning the blockchain into an unusable artifact.

Fortunately, Bitcoin already has a built-in mechanism to counteract overcrowded blocks: transaction fees.

When the blocks do start becoming consistently full, it'll be the ones with the highest priority (as in, smallest size and largest transaction fee) that get first priority, as it should be. If this means that SatoshiDice can't compete, and has to quit since it can't send tons of transactions for little to no fee any longer, why in the world should I or anyone else (except the owner of SatoshiDice... sorry bud, but you should have seen this coming) shed a tear over it? Pushing for a core rule change to Bitcoin to accommodate one current, and multiple future companies that want to fill blocks with their own transactions and not pay for doing so strikes me as just a bad idea.

So does that mean there should never be a block size increase? I'm going to say yes, there should not be one. Maybe it was originally intended, but I don't think it's necessary, and really, it's a pointless endeavor, if allowing "enough" transactions is the goal. (If instead the goal is a set, ideal number of transactions per second, say to match PayPal, and it's intended to be the only increase ever, I'd be more sympathetic... but I doubt that'll ever be the proposal.)

That's not to say that there shouldn't be some way to allow more, smaller-value transactions to flow. It's been pretty clear for a while now (to me, anyway) that Bitcoin needs a silver to its gold. We need a second cryptocurrency--one with larger blocks; smaller, simpler transactions, possibly doing away with scripting and only allowing simple spends; faster difficulty adjustments; a less-demanding full node; and somewhat faster confirmation times.



Hmm. Worth looking into.

Which is why this type of proposal is being offered...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145754.msg1551072#msg1551072

Reading over the technical/economic arguments, I think the max block size should be whatever the p2p network (full nodes) can handle while allowing smallish miners to be competitive. The limit should be expanded to meet consumption as long as the p2p network can support it. If the change is done in one or more hard forks, pressure to develop better solutions shall and are emerging to make use of the available space more efficiently. We do not need a kitchen sink solution where everyone and their toaster can run a full node. What we do need is a Bitcoin where everyone that puts in a minimal amount of effort can run a full node, although running an archive node might not always be simple.

If someone wants to keep their sovereignty on a 56K modem, they can convince AOL to send out block chain coasters to everyone (using CDs) every week (tongue in cheek solution). If miners can't afford to include free transactions, they won't. Node relay rules don't determine what will be included in the block, the miners decide. I can't see inclusions for txns being much different than the market for domain registrars, if anything it is already a much freer market. Let the free market do its work in that regard. Bitcoin doesn't promise that anyone can validate the block chain in real time, for free, forever.

Like a few people in the other threads said, the market for including transactions is exactly like electricity prices. If marginal costs are not covered, miner won't do it any longer than they would if electricity prices are too high. People can use overlay networks as much as they want, the block chain should support whatever the network can handle. Arguing about max block size within the bounds of what is pragmatic is like arguing that txn relay fees should never change. I see any non-technical limit on transactions as anti-Bitcoin and not the Bitcoin I signed up for.

Well, as a bitcoiner without programming background, I simply smelled something important. That is to run a full node, the Satoshi client and configure it to run at startup. It's something like my computer is a branch office of a bank that can perform full services to the community as much as headquarters do.  8)

I see the block size (and frequency) as much as economic rules as the total number of coin is.  I disagree with Satoshi that it is just something that we can 'change.'

I'm part of that sticky group of people that WILL NOT accept a larger block size.  I doesn't matter what other people say; or the reasons that they give.  Frankly, I would reject (with my full node, and SPV nodes) any non-bitcoin chain.  Any block breaking the 1mb/10min avg limit will not be a bitcoin for me.


However I am not worried.  I know that Bitcoin will be just fine with a 1mb block limit; as MarkM so eloquently put is, we need to get over having only one chain, but rarther think of having a ecosystem of hundreds of merge-mined chains that all fullfill different roles.


One of the reasons, (there are many), that I work on Open Transactions is that I believe that we need secure and cryptographically auditable off-chain transactions.  Making the need for more than 7tx/s on the Bitcoin block chain much (completely?) negated.

The best part is that I am in control of this problem.  Even if every other person moves to larger (or more frequent) blocks, I know my bitcoins are safe, and for-me bitcoin will keep-on working. (well other than the attack of a drastic lower hash-rate maybe)

So yes, I think that there is AT LEAST a key 10% of the Bitcoin user population (including me) that will veto any such changes.

Phew, for a moment you had me worried, but with 90% following one side of a fork - then worries over.

da2ce7, please consider that nearly everyone on this forum has bitcoin's interests at heart. That it why thousands of posts debate the minutiae of any software change. Then consider how much progress there would be if 100% agreement was needed before any action took place...

But, for such a change, even 1% can veto it... That is what makes Bitcoin so great!  The economic problems caused by 1% forking makes it not worth for the 99% to implement the change.

If they developers commit to scaling the network as far as the demand for transaction requires so that it can be the replacement for PayPal, and for Visa, and maybe even national currencies that we've all been promised, then I'll start up an extra full node to replace yours.

I'll not 'veto' an effort to have Bitcoin evolve to a high footprint system which natively competes head-on with mainstream solutions, but I expect that it will either fail outright or eventually be perverted to the point where it is worse than nothing.  All the same, I'll hope that I am wrong and wish it well.

I expect that there will be enough like-minded stakeholders to operate a light-weight solution which focuses on security.  If so, I'll be one.  As I said on one of my few OP threads, I feel that the resources needed to light-weight chain if security and credibility outweigh a profit motive are well within the reach of what a small number of enthusiasts can muster.  A chain maintained as an insurance policy against subversion of the 'real' Bitcoin does not necessarily need to spend it's gestational phase of life in highly profitable mode and a fairly small group of maintainers is something which has less potential to be subverted.

I've always specifically expected that all of my monetary input which acquired BTC would be a total loss.  A highly speculative adventure.  No matter what happens vis-a-vis the block size, I'll be re-claiming my initial investment one of these days.  Then the remaining BTC can sit for years.  So if the blockchain forks I'll have plenty of time to see how things progress.  I could have my hand forced if one chain forces a legacy spend of course, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

That isn't the point either.  The fact is that my nodes will continue to run quite fine; rejecting your blocks.  I will be using bitcoin, and you will be using some alt-rule-chain that I don't consider to be bitcoin.

My coins will be spendable in both chains.  :)

The thing is that if 10% (or even 1%) of the Bitcoin USERS do not accept the change, the change will not happen: because the economic consequences will be too-large.


We are not working in a democracy here.  We are working with a "do what the you want, but I'm not going to change my code mkay."
For this change to be successful, the bar isn't 50%, or 90%, or 99%, but rather closer to 99.9%.

All you're saying is that to be successful the userbase just needs to grow by an order of magnitude, which is exactly what one would predict if the demand for transactions is exceeding what 1 MB blocks can provide.

He is also saying his fork will continue to exist regardless. That's fine, he can use his inconsequential fork as long as he has another node to connect to (even if it is his own). He can also use Open Transactions he is selling as a solution all he likes too.

I suspect most of us will not support a fork that doesn't scale to its potential. Zealotry is not a good reason to keep a crude network management rule that has served its purpose and was meant to be improved. Much of the protocol was meant to be upgraded and replaced as needed. The 1MB limit increase will likely be the second improvement of many. The first as I understand it is block V2, which is still phasing in. Others like the hashing and key algorithms appear to be fine for the foreseeable future and probably all our lifetimes, but they will change eventually if bitcoin doesn't die. The txn limit is actually much lower than 7 tps if bitcoin ever sees significant usage of any of it's coolest features, like smart contracts.

Except it isn't just me, there are hundreds of users (and owners of bitcoin) like me, who signed on to a system that we thought would have LOWER relative costs to verify in the future.  That one day every, even the cheapest computer, could become a full-node.

The thing is that these people don't post on the forums about this change.  Because they are not arguing FOR a change. They are quite happy with bitcoin is atm.

They don't even need to be convinced about the change.  Their Bitcoin; the current Bitcoin; the real Bitcoin.  Will continue to work just fine.

That expectation is insane, unless you expect Bitcoin to remain a tiny niche currency that a statistically insignificant fraction of a tiny minority of the population use, or you just want it to die on the vine.

There are a lot of optimizations which could be put in place that would allow regular users to process much higher transaction rates. Maybe we'd need to require users to have a computer purchased within the last 2 or 3 years with a broadband connection instead of a dial up modem, is that really too much to ask?

Instead of complaining about how higher transaction rates will make it harder to run a full node, why not support (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93606.0) some of the people trying to implement optimizations to make that less of a problem?

Although I am deeply in the 'light footprint' camp, I find it equally valid that people who signed on to Bitcoin thinking that it could scale to become the world's economic system could be feeling slighted.

I honestly can say that I recognized the conflict within seconds of having a basic understanding of Bitcoin, but then I have a background in operating datacenters and dealing with fairly large amounts of data.  Even if Merkle pruning had progressed it really would not fully solve some of the more difficult scaling issues.

Neither the 'peer-2-peer' concept nor the 'replace the banks' concept were ever deprecated and I consider the Bitcoin project fairly disingenuous in this failing.  To blame individuals for their own particular differences in opinion is not really completely appropriate in my mind.

I would consider running two nodes...one for the slow Bitcoin with tiny block chain and one for world dominating megachain Bitcoin...there may be a use for each type of Bitcoin. 

That may well be, but what does that have to do with the network management policy that currently requires blocks be less than 1MB? I silently read the forums daily and only decided to post more recently when some vocal people decided that this network management policy should be set in stone when people started asking "should we increase the limit"? The network management policy is very unlike all the other "fixed" points that make Bitcoin. It only extends Bitcoin's capability while hopefully not exposing Bitcoin to the attacks retep identified. I'm normally happy to stay on the sidelines and watch what solutions people come up with. I like to hear some thought and pause about increasing the limit, I'm a bit disturbed that anyone seriously thinks it should be fixed and that aspect of Bitcoin is perfect just the way it is. The amount of thought that went into that limit was clearly crude and haphazard compared to all the other fixed points.

By all means the community needs to explore why it needs to change, what changes need to be made, how the changes will be implemented and when the network will accept the change. I feel that anyone that seriously explores those topics will see there will be a need for a change. Maybe they will conclude that we won't need to see that change in anyone's lifetime, but I would like to see some better evidence on why they think that.

Going back to your example for the moment, I don't think the goal is necessarily valid. Assuming it is though, even the cheapest computers today can handle being a full node indefinitely even with a block size increase. The only question is how high can it go if that is the goal. Bitcoin can always choose to make trade-offs between things like fast, cheap, and good. Even if we choose all three, there is still room to increase the limit. I would hope we would trade-off a little bit off the cheap side, and increase network requirements a bit more than others might like, but I can live with modest changes if the reasoning has legs. Regardless, I want the decision to be continuously re-evaluated like every other part of Bitcoin.

It is hard to understand how anyone can want Bitcoin to stay in the dark ages forever. Anyone that says it changes the social contract hasn't been paying enough attention to all the other changes that have been happening to the code base that makes the social contract. This change should be less controversial than P2SH or overflow bug. Software is meant to evolve and Bitcoin already has.

Open Transactions is fine, but please do not conflate what it does with the block size limit and why it is there. Anyone can use whatever version of Bitcoin they want. I hope you've never upgraded. I'm sure it will continue to work just fine like all the other alt chains, until the 32-bit time stamp issue runs its course. The Bitcoin you are using now will look like a quaint dinosaur in 50 years. The "real" Bitcoin will be whatever everyone agrees to use.

bump

yeah people keep going on about the drain on hard drive space, you would need to have a pretty old machine for this to be a problem as far as i am concerned, most modern desktops are coming with 3TB these days.

are you sure its not 100TB?

1mb full blocks where 100% of each block is full for the whole year =52.5gb a year bloat
2mb full blocks where 100% of each block is full for the whole year =105gb a year bloat
2mb+segwit where 100% of each block is full for the whole year =210gb a year bloat
2mb+segwit+confidential payment codes plus other feature flags where 100% of each block is full for the whole year =420gb a year bloat


standard basic UK cheap desktop computer at £350($500) has 3.5TB hard drive.
this allows for ATLEAST 8 years(3500/420) storage*.

average time scale a gamer upgrades their computer 6months-2years
average time an active computer user(office/computer hobbiest) upgrades their computer 2-4 years.

so storage is no issue. people will upgrade their computer before the hard drive fills.

*after all the 420gb is MAXIMUM potential. remember bitcoin was able to have true 1mb buffer allowance since 2013(unofficially 2009) yet bitcoin is not 7x52gb..
so even after 8 years harddrives will not be 420gb filled.

with all that said. having to download and validate a 1mb block in under 5 minutes is technically harder than downloading a 2mb block in 10 minutes.
also messing with the difficulty, and the blockreward to achieve a 5minute average while keeping the 21mill cap is harder to code without bugs then simply raising the limit to 2mb for 10minute average.

and if you look at monero. they have actually increased their blocktime due to bad orphan rates and other issues.

so if monero thinks that 2minutes is safe for 1mb monero, safe for 1mb litecoin etc.  but when bitcoin is also handling segit, confidential transactions and having to do things like pruning. this makes it 5x more unstable. so 10minutes is a safe processing time for all of bitcoins features compared to the processing time needed for 2009 version of bitcoin, compared to the processing time needed for 1mb of monero, compared to the processing time needed for 1mb litecoin.

in short
yes in 2009 bitcoin could have been reduced to 5 minute average without issue. but now bitcoin has grown with many more features and usability, there would be problems in multiple ways of making 5 minute blocks

Distributed ledger puts both security and transparency which could possibly revolutionise the industrial supply chain soon.

For me bitcoin rules can’t change because this set of rules is make to build a stronger foundation of the business in this industry to gain respect and trust
by following the set of rules and this called rules is for the own good of the investors inside of this business to balance the unity of the business.

Actually there’s a possibility that bitcoin can govern the whole world if all of the countries in this world is not lack of technology and not only basing from norms and tradition
because as of now we born in the different generation and that thing called generation build some changes to the years that past and past.

Yes of course, will bitcoin in last forever because like I always said they are the best company over all companies in this business
because they are most demand business in this industry because through their credibility ability and great performances that everyone is looking out so this the reason why it is.

I think the reason behind why bitcoin rules can’t change because this is a long life rules that makes by the owner of this business to build a braver foundation of the business in this industry

very true, it should be understood that running full node is important to maintain the network and its stability, same way as it's crucial for mining power to be decentralized.

That's just a mere issue, bitcoin has changed by 2017 bitcoin technology is decentralized blockchain technology, security and rationalist self-ownership. Currently, there is bitcoin strength in the crypto currency in the crypto market. 8)

I earn bitcoin from airdrop campaigns and bounty campaigns
I think it can not fail, it is on the rise

wow long post bro, I got about 144 characters in before I gave up.

Currently it is not a viable option for most people to be able to walk as a knot in the not-too-distant future. For the problem of bandwidth and space only increases with further bitcoin reception. Both clients who have to change with all of them are needed like developers who decide on a rule change or more people have to stop by running the full knot is when it is no longer feasible for them later. 8)

The system has been working for many years and if the rules regarding bitcoin now change, then there will be a lot of dissatisfied, especially now that every day more pain and more people are entering bitcoin every day.

I thank all parties, OP. I strongly agree. That's why when I bring up the size of the developing blockchain, the "thin client use" response doesn't work for me. Everyone must run at least one full client. And mine if possible. But the size of the developing blockchain is a problem. I would love to have a good way to share the load of having a full node among several machines in my home network. Thanks

i like to read some post like this. i find the answer about this question in the internet. but when i read i don't really understand. but i i can. thank you

lesson for me

ohh too long . but this post is great man. thanks you. can you post the other one like this in the future

Bitcoin rules can revolutionize the supply chain industry. For me, the bitcoin rules can not be changed as this set of rules is created to build a firmer foundation for the business in the industry to gain respect and trust by following the rules. And this rule is called for the interests of investors inside this enterprise to balance the unity of the business.

I believe things cannot change easily in the world of crypto and for this matter bitcoin. I believe most of the issues with bitcoin are mostly controlled by major stakeholders. For instance, when it comes to the issues of transaction fees and speed, they are mostly determined by miners and that is how things have been for a very long time.

I don't think this regulation will change as long as the 21 million Bitcoin limit has not been met. Because bitcoin is a global currency, of course the rules are uniform, there is no difference between one country and another. After the limit of 21 million bitcoin has passed everything can happen, for example, the price will soar or fall into cheap, also unknown. Also the rules that accompany it, whether it will be maintained with risks remain banned in some countries or there is a compromise in order to become the world currency, time will answer because bitcoin was created as a digital currency used globally.