Bitcoin Forum

My guess is that the Bitcoin Blockchain is growing at around 4% per month.

https://i.imgur.com/9LoF3wF.png

Is that assessment about right?

And what about the bandwidth each node will require each month if it's sharing data - 100 TB / month; 1,000TB / month?

What does this mean for the next halving?  All miners will be running SPV's?

A chart from Blockchain.info from launch

https://i.imgur.com/kmVNyG2.png

this seems maybe a bit to much. could you include the data from the beginning until now? this would help.
also there updates in development that should result in smaler blockchainsize and bandwith requirement.
worst case scenario is, that you are right, but storage capacity will increase too and 700GB will not be much in 4 years.

Quantum Computers are advancing much faster in calc and storage capacity. In 4 years from now, QCs will have cracked the blockchain, and Bitcoin will be gone, or at least, residing on a QC.

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Moore's Law.

I believe the devs are working on the size of the blockchain, but it's not at the top of their list, and rightly so. They have bigger matters which require their more immediate attention.

You're correct to point out the growing size of the blockchain, but it's a relatively small problem amongst others.

100TB to 1,000TB bandwidth requirement for full nodes in just 4 years time is not a small problem. Who has a data plan that can allow that, even unlimited plans have a fair use cap?

There is very little the devs can do about the growing size of the blockchain. Data is data.

Multi sig, for example, will counter any voodoo by the devs to reduce the size of transactions.

did you make this chart yourself or are you copying it from somewhere?
why is it rising exponentially instead of with a fixed rate:
https://blockchain.info/charts/block-size it has been an straight line so far according to this chart after 4 years block size should be ~240GB

and even if the block size is increased again the rise should be an straight line not exponential growth.

p.s. i think you should move this topic to New Posts Development & Technical Discussion otherwise it will get buried here and i really want to know how much of what i said is right and how much of it is wrong.

The blockchain has gained about 20GB in less than 12 months.

That's not straight line since Bitcoin was launched 6 years ago.

It's my chart.

The blockchain.info data seems to agree with me to some degree

https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?timespan=all

yes but blocks that were mined a long time ago were small size blocks and i don't think it is correct to use that data for extrapolation.

for example block
329100 was 99KB (2014-11)
229100 was 184KB (2013-4)
129100 was 13KB (2011-6)

and so on but if you change the timespan=2year you can see in the last two years it is an straight line which is because of the nearly full blocks. starting from end of 2014 ishi think it is mostly mid 2015!

so if you want to extrapolate you should only consider the data that is similar which means the same block size starting at end of 2014 ish (or find the original time) then with the fixed (800-900 KB) size blocks the increase is an stable rise (straight line)

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let me just add that my logic will only work as long as we stick to the max 1MB block which is the current protocol. so it will rise following that straight line that i keep saying.
calculating the future would be something like this:
number of blocks mined each day * size of one block (1MB or 900 average)

but if block size increased then all these calculations would be wrong and depending on the size of blocks (1.1, 1.2, .... 1.9, 2+,...) it would be different.

bitcoin core to double the size of blockchain in 2017 IIRC, that's why the bitcoin blockchain is gonna be more than ever. how horrible if we cannot expand what our capacity has/have.

at least a micro SD card does a 256GB.

Hardware is not the rate limiting factor. It's just an added expense to get more space.

Bandwidth is the greater issue.

You are sort of right, but the evidence is not a straight line.

If you increase block sizes, they will not be full from the day the size limit is increased. But as adoption happens, the rise will not be a straight line.  You then hit another need to increase the blocks.

But what if there is a block size that is dynamic?  If adoption is allowed to continue towards Visa levels of transactions, then these factors combine to create exponential growth.

We are both making hypothetical claims, but the evidence so far points towards exponential growth.

You just answered your own question.
It is a assumption depending on max blocksize and no fact.

your post is completely irrelevant here!
first of all we are talking about 4 years not 40 years. second of all even if QC becomes a thing available to public we can move to more complicated encryption to avoid them.

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anyways i think as c789 pointed out, everybody has something more important in their minds rather than increase of blockchain size.
and maybe i am wrong but i think one of the reasons that some miners were against the block size increase was the similar reason.

also i don't think your 700GB is accurate because we don't know what will happen in the future. for now max block size is 1 and we don't know when it is going to be increased and even by then we don't know how much of it will be full. the number of unconfirmed transactions show that the current size is enough for the number of transactions and even if it was increased today the size of blocks will be the same unless someone starts spamming again.

so there are too many variables at play that we can't be sure about the 700GB the only thing that you can say is that it will be somewhere between 240 and 700

Sssh. People don't want to hear that little fact. My bandwidth has been unchanged since 2004 and doesn't look like it's changing any time soon. Storage is a piece of piss. Bandwidth requires lumbering bureaucracies to slowly grind into motion.

Its true that quantum computers are advancing fast but as far as i know until 2020 bitcoin is quantum computers resistant

They won't tell you when it's working.

Would it not be possible to buy a harddrive with the blockchain already on it?
Downloading 700GB P2P, I guess that would take weeks or even months.
Every package sent around the globe usually is faster.
In 4 years, a 700 GB USB stick will be a normal thing.

1TB usb is currently around $600. Plus, loading fees, plus delivery, plus taxes, lets say its around $400 $300 delivered to your door in 4 years. Would you buy one?

Don't forget that monthly bandwidth cost.

Ok, let's say we put it on a ssd. You get a 1TB ssd today for about 200$. In four years maybe 50$.
If you can spare somebody from downloading the blockchain for weeks, I can imagine that there are people who give you 150$ for it. In four years.
I really think that could work.
Do you have another opinion?

PHEW!

Seriously though, is the fork still an option? I've been away from the topic for a while. Thanks.

there's currently zero incentive to run a node. who's gonna pay dollars for a hard disk containing the blockchain on top of that? i guess there might be a tiny hard core but other than that people are gonna say 'screw it' and let someone else deal with it. that's how it is with a manageable size right now. when it gets really big it's not likely to improve.

I too investigated some graphs about this topic and according to my research I think the size will be about 700 GB in 4 years. Maybe not 700 exactly, but somewhere around that. I agree with your sight there. I look forward to checking this fact when the time comes

ok some basic maths
at todays 1mb blocks = 52gb maximum bloat potential.
so far no year has even got close to 52gb growth per year alone.

but lets pretend the next 4 years are at full capacity
1mb blocks x4 years = 208gb maximum bloat potential(+ 7 years historic data = ~290gb)
2mb blocks x4 years = 416gb maximum bloat potential(+ 7 years historic data = ~498gb)
4mb blocks x4 years = 832gb maximum bloat potential(+ 7 years historic data = ~914gb)

so there you have it.
in 4 years time the MAXIMUM bloat the blockchain can be is 914gb, which is fact
yet the reality of actual data can be anything between/below, which is speculation

That's not a problem for the end user. Most of us can afford to buy a 2 TB to 5 TB hard disk , the conventional one and not the SSD, as SSD is much more expensive. After 4 years will not be a problem keeping bitcoin core wallet which contains the full blockchain but the main problem with be the bandwidth it will use per month. This cost will surely grow. But there is hope, if bitcoin price is like 10.000 USD after 4 years (not highly possible but possible) a lot of us here will be very happy back then.

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

This guy is seeing around 600GiB in bandwidth over 30 days.

So, lets say the blockchain is 10x today in 4 years time, would the bandwidth be 10x 600GiB?  What about if we see user growth from 1-3 million going up to 3-6 million?

https://statoshi.info/dashboard/db/bandwidth-usage

Wrong.

You could have been right though, if you were aware of some mathematical facts:

https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FfYFBsqp.jpg&t=568&c=eyDijE3i8fSqag

What we do know is that internet speed is advancing at a rate nowhere close to the rate the Blockchain is growing, I hope people have prepared for themselves some real life hobbies, especially since downloading the Blockchain will become a long process (taking a couple of weeks), andBitcointalk.org will experience more DDoS attacks.

We have underestimated quantum computers in a big way.


Quantum Computing – Artificial Intelligence Is Here
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PqN_2jDVbOU/hqdefault.jpg?custom=true&w=336&h=188&stc=true&jpg444=true&jpgq=90&sp=68&sigh=4cVstNI4t9nysnZkvO86THQYVIY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqN_2jDVbOU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqN_2jDVbOU)


Or watch the extended version at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By56IOSZ7KY.


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It means absolutely nothing. In 4 years, the average computer will have 2 Tb at disposal and cheap SSDs will be the 240 Go ones. Data storage is where things go really fast.

Re the info-graphic.

Even though that info-graphic is widely circulated on these forums, unfortunately it is wrong. Bitcoin only has 160 bits of security. The private key is 256 bits, but we are only using a 160 bit hash for the bitcoin address. So there are many many private keys associated with the same bitcoin address.

160 bits of security is still a lot (and due to the hashing, we know of no Quantum Computing algorithm that can crack bitcoin even if they had the computing power), but it is not strictly true that thermodynamics puts a limit on cracking bitcoin as is said on the info-graphic.

I agree with that, but we're not there yet.


I disagree, internet speeds will never be able to cope with maintaining a 1 TB download to a duration of less than a week. This is not even counting the daily synchronizations necessary for spending/receiving coins. It could be a couple of Gigabytes for all we know.

That is insight information because I knew that .dat file for the bitcoin core was around 45 gigs at the time I was using it but that is coming to a terabyte of information.
That is massive. But there must be a way to compile it to make it smaller. :-\

Except for one thing. As the video showed, quantum computers act in such an entirely different way that there is no way to compare them with regular PCs. Certainly, if they can touch other universes, they might be able to find all the pieces of the blockchain elsewhere, other than the blockchain right here. then, all that they need do is bring that info home to Mommy.

8)

Look up post quantum cryptography.
You can start here:

http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2016/NIST.IR.8105.pdf


About transmission speed look up quantum teleportation and data transmission.

Hey! Thanks for the link. I think I have seen it before. So have all the developers of quantum computers. That's why government authorizes stuff like this, and why developers go way beyond it.

8)

Since you like links so much, here is mine:

https://micahflee.com/2013/01/no-really-the-nsa-cant-break-your-crypto/ (https://micahflee.com/2013/01/no-really-the-nsa-cant-break-your-crypto/)

Can we have something like cloud storage or something to compress blockchain?Like we have file compressors can we have blockchain compressors as well?

I'm pretty sure that cloud storage could lead to an easier data compromise, so for privacy reasons, I don't think they'll ever implement that

The NSA may not be able to break Bitcoin quite yet, but this video courtesy of SulmaINO (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1578776.msg16209756#msg16209756) shows that they will be able soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhHMJCUmq28

8)

but let us be realistic here. if you QC can crack the blockchain, then it can also crack other places with much more money involved. and if you want money you do not go for bitcoin, since an attack for a big sum will be noticed and bitcoin will probably become worthless. so the only reason to do this would be to destroy bitcoin.

I bet at some point they will fork btc to another algo ? or even better SHAKE256-1024 would be a 1024-bit digest with the effective security of a 512-bit hash.
But anyhow back to topic i dont think the extra 700GB would be a problem in 4 years from now, already my cold storage is an external 2TB hdd , so if i dont mind im a home user, why should a node worry about ?

to all those talking about quantum computing, thinking it involves the mysticism of quantum realms and parellel dimentions.. nots not
is actually alot more simple.

but the creators of d-wave dont want competitors beating them to it so they are distracting the world with their "secret" by pretending its mystical.

here is a previous post i made explaining quantum computing logically rather than mystically

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1606167.msg16150882#msg16150882

in short the "cubit can be both a 1 and a 0 at the same time due to third dimensions" translates to a cubit can be a 0volt or 1volt AND.. 0.5volt that can represent both
its just simple measuring of electricity, no longer just no electric vs some measure of electric for 0 or 1.. but multiple measures of electric to allow more then 2 choices per 'bit'

As long as the blocksizes are capped and this cap is not removed, I guess we will just see a linear increase from now on (as most blocks are full) instead of a exponential increase.

The 3-4% increase is compounded and the amount of data increases exponentially instead of a non compounded "fixed" increase. My guess is that it will be much lower because of not having an exponential increase anymore.

Are you saying that blocks will not be increased? So from now on, its just a straight line increase?

It's not so big deal for blockchain as all over the world people are using blockchain and the size should have been much larger. Because in my experience a simple medium traffic ecommerce site generates about 1gb data monthly and for such a huge organization it should have been much more.

If the blocksize increases linearly so will the blockchain size - and right now it seems exactly like that.

The evidence is against your view, at this point:

When an exponential curve tends to become linear, it usually means it is stagnating. Which is not what's happening in this case, 82 Gigs is a long way from 2 Terabytes.

http://www.mkomo.com/assets/hd-cost-graph-small.png

Note that this chart s on LOG scale.

http://drpeering.net/img/TransitPriceDrops.jpg

Also, there's a ridiculous artificial 1MB cap on the blockchain size right now, so it increases slower, but at the same time it's limiting the growth and adaptation of bitcoin, so the limit has to go.

We shouldn't worry about the scaling too much, we just need to make sure the blockchain is allowed to grow, and we don't impose stupid artificial limits on it.

There is already quantum-proof encryption, and we can easily change bitcoins proof-of-work to a quantum proof system when that becomes necessary.

You make me really scared OP.. if it happens and bitcoin block size reach to 700GB in that time.. no one can download and use bitcoin core client.. or maybe people who have  super computers can afford to download and install it.

Is that the end of Bitcoin? ??? ??? ???

That is why core devs don't want to raise the block size, it is a very risky thing to do. I know a block size increase will come but not for now. Also we will eventually have a way to prune the blockchain and not need to download the whole blockchain the first time, or I hope so.

The complete blockchain could be held in repositories.

Other than that, all anybody needs is the first transaction of any address/every address, and, say, the two last transactions of every address.

Few people do many transactions in Bitcoin... such as the exchanges, etc. Even these people often do not do many transactions with any single address. We don't need all the transactions of all the addresses. We can reduce the size of our personal copy of the blockchain on our computers by eliminating all but the first transaction done with an address, and the last two transactions done with it... maybe only the last transaction.

As long as there are a bunch of searchable blockchain repositories that contain the whole blockchain, we don't need all the info, personally.

Some of the wallet programs -  such as Armory or Electrum or Multibit - are already doing this, at least to some extent.

8)

To be honest it's not a big deal. An average user doesn't keep the whole blockchain downloaded, only miners and too serious bitcoin users do that. Even now 1tb hdd/ssd doesn't cost too much every new pc now comes with 1tb hdd atleast and in four years I think 1tb would be like today's 100 gb(ok maybe little exaggerating) but you get it, not a big deal.

There will no folk use bitcoin qt wallet, it is too big and wastes our hard disk, it also costs 1-2 weeks to download 700 GB blockchain.

^^ Right! Think of the bandwidth to move all this info around.    8)

No.

This is about understanding the issue and dealing with it.

I want to see some views on the facts first, then there are ways we can deal with the issues.

Why do you want to store the Blockchain on the most expensive media? Just drop it on a inexpensive 3.5" harddrive and you set to go. The cost

of harddrives are cheap in relation to memory sticks and the size & price ratio of older drives {second hand drives} are also very affordable. I can

get second hand drives for next to nothing. You can put loads of smaller second hand drives in a RAID configuration.  ;D

Well, I suppose we could snail mail hard drives around to cover the bandwidth costs.

8)

I was responding to the question. If you look, he or she talks about a USB.

That's actually very interesting, thanks.

However, bandwidth caps are a very real issue especially on residential connections. We already have seen in the media threats by internet service providers wanting to cap and meter bandwidth because of the rise in HD movies....In 4 years, the issue will become even more of a problem because of 4k video, and then 8k video 4 years after that.

Having a full node that requires substantial bandwidth when the blockchain is approaching 1TB is going to be a problem.

Agreed, but why use a USB memory stick to do that, if you can use a cheap second hand harddrive. You can overnight courier the drive for

even less... the 2.5" harddrives are a bit more expensive, but they weigh less.  ;) .. For every problem, there is a solution. If a friend of mine,

have bandwidth issues, I will copy the Blockchain on one of these cheap harddrives, and courier it to him. Daily bandwidth use after that,

should not be an issue. Some clever entrepreneur can take this idea and make some profit charging people for this service.  ;)

we gift, i just bought a 5TB hard drive for under a £100.  can you imagine how cheap it will be in four years........ #MOORESLAW  8) ;D

When do you think we will get to that point? A couple years maybe?

the main problem with the huge blockchain size is bitcoin getting even more centralised
less nodes,regular users less likely to use core wallets,more companies like mycelium to provide easy to use no-need-to-synch wallets
it is hard to convince a btc newbie to start to use btc core wallet now as it is-who would want to wait several days and download gigabytes of data when you want it   here and now.

Way off. We are talking about internet speed, not RAM here

I agree with that. Newbies up, full nodes down. At some point that equation fails.

They have other reasons, they want to push blockstream so they can pay those multi-million investments back by stealing fees that belong to the miners from users by gaming the Bitcoin transaction system. It does not matter to them that they kill Bitcoin in the process. They'll likely just reinvest in alts anyway.    

By the way, 700 gigabyte in 4 years may sound like a lot, but it's really not.    

A 1 TB hard drive can easily fit that and it's cheap, especially if you only need to buy one every 4 years.  

And by the time it's full, even bigger hard drives will be even cheaper.    

Blocksize is no problem, hard disks are cheap and will become cheaper all the time. No need to limit ourselves.    

What if Bitcoin was invented in 1980 on people insisted the blockchain had to fit on a floppy? Don't .imit yourself by outdated ideas. Technology does not stand still, why should you?


It's better to risk having less full nodes than to have the (on-chain) transactions themselves get centralized because the blocksize is so small that only really rich people can afford to make on-chain transactions and the rest will be handled by what basically are payment processors.     

We don't need to turn Bitcoin into PayPal 2.0. We don't need that. And it's very bad for decentralization.

700 GB isn't that bad because we have Bitcoin Clients that sync the data with a virtual bootstrap so the Bitcoin Client is able to view transactions via real-time.


It was pretty much stated before...If Bitcoin is alive in 4 years it shouldn't be a big issue because we would most likely have high quality fiber cables that transmit faster internet speeds.

Just watch out though..

They could always do a soft or hard fork to implement something like HEAT's unlimited scalability:
http://heatledger.com/HEATWhitepaper.pdf


Take out the embedded database and implement a memory-mapped-files system.  This allows full nodes to run while only saving the most recent 720 blocks.

Or bitcoin nodes become increasingly concentrated in data centers instead of on home computers, which I don't think is that big of a deal, as long as they're not all in the same data center.

That is a poor excuse and I hope the Bitcoin core developers are not thinking the same way as you are. Just because hard drives are getting cheap, do you think that the core developers should not find ways to improve pruning and other measures to prevent the blockchain's bloating size? Whatever other people say about offline transactions I still believe it should be one feature that should be explored and tested as soon as possible.

Also please remember that bandwidth is the bigger issue here than storage.

Crossing the Rubicon:

https://i.imgur.com/eaEsuoe.png
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/56bths/to_all_the_people_running_full_nodes_we_thank_you/

https://i.imgur.com/8KiOOrT.png

Yes, that's the real issue. The price is irrevelant. No new user will get core wallets, and old users who change computers will move to multibit or some other software which doesn't require the blockchain. I usually switch off my computer at night, and I can't imagine leaving it running for more than a week to download a one TB file. That will be the blockchain in 5 or 10 years from now.

by me it will be current size +120 GB ;)... not 700 GB...
Your calculation is wrong, and it should be below 200 GB instead 700 GB, so almost anyone can handle it...

Satoshi has already predicted this happening at the start of Bitcoin and there is a section for that in his whitepaper. In 5 to 10 years time, the internet would probably be a lot faster with a higher fiber pentration rate.

Normal users can run SPV client without a security risk if they can find a trustable full node backing it.

Tell it to this guy who has already switch off his node:

And if these hardforker morons with their 2mb - 16mb blocks get their way, then it will be petabytes in notime.

Seriously, how can somebody be so stupid to support block increase?

yeah that initial download is a killer. i have a 1.5 gigabit connection, yes gigabit, not gigabyte. downloading it from scratch at this size is not realistic for me. only reason i have it at all is because i started in 2013 or so when the size wasnt too bad and kept with it every day.

my bandwidth is so bad that i regularly backup the blockchain to several places so i dont have to download it again if it gets corrupted, just start  from last backup which is about every week or so.

in some ways this is very technical so it really requires a lot of analytical thinking. But as a not so technical type of person like me i also know that this thing would really happens but as we can see processor's of the computers are also innovating right? so i think their system could still afford to do so.

Do to continuous usage of bitcoin transaction it's not surprising to hear that blockchain's size will be 700GB
 It's of normal size. Even a medium e commerce site would generate 1TB data in 1 year. As I had worked in a live project so it's of normal size.

We are talking about Bitcoin generating 1TB every month, at current levels. So at 700GB it would generate 10TB per month.

I have no idea how this thread didn't catch my eye yet. I guess there's too much crap in the section.

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No, all that this graph and 'calculation' requires is a brain.

Speculating on an ever dying Moore's "law" (which isn't even a law in the traditional sense) can and will lead to trouble.

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@OP: There's too much crap in this thread that isn't worth reading; please start using self-moderated threads in the future. That said, you're assuming a growth rate in % or have you done your calculations based on X average block size per day/week/month? Did you factor in Segwit? If not, you will have to update that chart.

Hey, thanks for chipping in. I'm concerned that if I apply and show good moderator skills, I might get asked to join the gang  ;D

Anyway, to your substantive point. SegWit is not yet implemented, so I want to see the evidence before making a change to my assumptions on the ~4% monthly growth rate.

Another, for instance to counter your point. If multi-sig keeps growing in popularity, does that wipe out the benefits of SegWit, making the need for a block size increase more likely?

However, I have put out a challenge on the assumptions I have made...and so far you have made the best challenge. Thanks.

I wouldn't worry about it, that isn't likely to happen just because you run self-moderated threads. :D

False. Segwit is implemented in 0.13.0, there are just no activation parameters (i.e. it is not active). They're making some final changes for 0.13.1 which should be released soon.

Well, the same could be asked for a block size increase, could it not (e.g. what if bigger average TX size becomes more popular)? Multisig with P2SH should be safer with Segwit, so I expect even more usage as well.Actually, if more people used multi-sig Segwit should be able to provide a bit more headroom IIRC.
It is expected to see a capacity of anywhere between 1.6 MB to 2 MB on average. The exact numbers are debatable, and yet to be seen in practice (you can/could check testnet blocks).  Someone did the math a few months back on the mailing list; I used to quote that, but can't find it at this time. If I do, I'll post it here.

segwit will rebuild the blocks ... after 1 year.
and then, the whole local blockchain will be reduce.
and then, olds clients will not be able to connect to eradicate 0-confirmation trap.

it's a revolution.

Local blockchain will be at 30 Go at the end of the 2017.

it's really a revolution.











http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img923/2284/rCpjNa.gif

What are you talking about? I'm pretty sure that nothing like that is going to happen.

And what about 10, 20 years?

1000TB?? Anyone have a bigger projection about this info?

This question is pointless and so would the follow up questions be (30, 40, 50 years, etc.). Just do your own math, it's really simple: average expected block size x number of blocks a day x number of days a year x number of years that you want. You won't get the most accurate projection, but you will get a rough picture and will avoid redundant questions.

yeah 700gb in 20 years later maybe like 20gb now?
as technology growing so faster , you will not to think 700gb as a large size then
people will find another technology to make the 700gb as cheap as possible 
really not a big deal .

To be honest I have found 100 gigs to be fairly large to download, however it isn't all that big of a file once it is downloaded and ready to go. It might be something like a 1/10th of a terabyte, but that isn't that bad is you do enough for data management and so.

In 20 years, chances are 20 terabytes will just be moderate amounts of data.

Hope the technology can raise exponentially too however it's 2016 and I have only 300gb hd... with a 5mb internet lol

Well, in the future only big miners will mining bitcoin...

We can't predict technological growth that far out into the future.

It isn't just the download, it's also the validation time. A full client may occasionally get broken for whatever reason, and that usually requires a reindex which takes a painful amount of time on non high-end hardware.

This is also known as ignoratio elenchi (irrelevant conclusion).

Well in 5 years or more the production process will be much more refined than it is right now and the price of electronics will be considerably cheaper - I would say more than 50% cheaper than it is now. For example the price of SSDs almost halved in recent years so I would assume the price of HDDs in 5 or 10 years from now will be more or less dirt cheap. Plus not everyone is running or planning to run a Bitcoin node on their home computer. Heck you could buy a 5TB home server right now and not break the bank.

It's not Moore's Law that's the issue.

It's Nielsen's Law that's the issue.

wow it will take me almost 1 week to finish the download i suppose rofl or even more than that

And that's the problem, not everyone will be able or willing to download the full blockchain. True decentralization can only be achieved if everyone has the same opportunity to download the full blockchain, if only rich countries can afford to run a full node, already it's the beginnings of centralization. Basically back to square one.

Yes it may become a problem. And the problem of bandwidth is much more pressing than that of storage, because most people in the industrialized countries are greatly overestimating the real upload speeds available worldwide. Many providers - even in countries with very good infrastructure - have explicit or implicit bandwidth limits and in many developing countries, sufficient bandwidth is either not reliably available or extremely expensive (sometimes even at Western standards - without taking into account the significantly lower buying power of the population in these countries).

So to preserve decentralization, Bitcoin must be scaled in the least resource expensive way possible. In my opinion, segregated witness and lightning networks are a step in the right direction, because they address the issue of microtransactions in a responsible way. Trying to store all transactions into blocks in the current format by allowing unlimited block sizes would be the end of a decentralized Bitcoin network.

ya.ya.yo!

On 10MBit/s line ... with an (very) old simple computer.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1594650.msg16039808#msg16039808

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img923/8299/yKtUAr.png

 ::) and the number of connexion is ... ?
full nodes MUST be set at a limited number of connexion.

it's a basic.

I've done a bit of reading on segwit and how it would reduce transaction times, but I never read anything about it reducing the total size of the blockchain.
If someone could give a quick explanation on how this works it would be greatly appreciated.

https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/

if :

- you have 80% of the network in 0.14.x segwit enforced
- and you have a new client in 0.14.x thaht it must download a new blockchain

- you can rebuild the whole blockchain with a segwit optimisation
- result = reduce per 4 the size of the local blockchain

- and at the end of the 2017, all clients have segwit local blockchain rebuilded with the new size
- because you can rebuild a segwit local blockchain from all clients of the Bitcoin network

needed : a stage/moment/string where bitcoin core client send transactions from local blockchain to others segwit clients to rebuild the local blockchain with the segwit optimisations.

think "transactions" and not "blocks" when you rebuild a local blockchain ... and the "segwit local blockchain" appear.
and you don't need to change anything for this.

it's a revolution.

We have technology to store even bigger files than 700GB now. In four years we will probably see even bigger disks, as storage capacity is constantly increasing.

It is not that we live in the 90. where people still used floppy disks. Discussion that blockchain will get even bigger and "omg what we will do" it pure FUD, IMO.

Especially when we don't even need to use Full Validation Wallets...

700GB is a hell of a lot of data but for anybody moaning there are solutions, prune mode for example is a great development.

Nobody forces people to use the Core client though, if it's a problem for you then simply don't run a full node.

At that time nobody will download bitcoin qt wallet, we all use online wallet or electrum lite wallet. Maybe some new tech will reduce the blockchain volume?

in 2016, yes.
20GB is hell in 2000.













in 2016, we have 2000GB ... in a SSD.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img921/8445/zSZcq3.gif

Guys it's not the storage space, people can build exabytes storage for relative cheap price.

It's the internet bandwitdh and maximum monthly bandwidth.

---

Most ISP with subscription model charge you say 10-20$/month, but on the contract, with small print they might say, maximum monthly bandwidth 1 terrabyte. If you download more than that, it might charge you in plus, or block your internet.

And you also have the download speed issue, many people live in villages, especially in China, from where they host their nodes from with shitty internet connection, that goes off every time there is bad weather, or it gets slowed down massively.


It's the download speed, it always was, always will be. The storage is not an issue.

I still have no idea what you're talking about. Are you sure you haven't mixed up something?

AFAIK you should not be running Bitcoin Core on a SDD due to the intense stress on IOPS (if you have to run reindex or something). They aren't as durable as HDDs (yet).

Funny thing about those ISP providers. They give you a certain download and upload speed, but if you attempt to use your internet at full speed for 30 days you're likely going to hit some cap after which you will either get your speed reduced or access cut off completely.

anyone can explain this to me would this affect the bitcoin price and where they store the storage space. i guess bitcoin many people is already using bitcoin & is growing and growing faster

ssds are the actually best option for keeping the blockchain because of the iops. when you need to reindex or whateverit flies compared to a spinner.

ssds have so many rewrites you dont need to worry. so that ssd used for the blockchain will only last 6 years instead of  9. so what. your hard drive will be outdated in the same time period.

Yes they give different subscription plans, usually you can apply for business subscription that are paid / bandwidth used.

But for retail subscription they make it sound like its unlimited but it is not, it's always in the contract with fine print, people should read it.

But of course they calculate how much people use on average for simple tasks like gaming, watching videos and pages, but they cant factor in that some people run bitcoin nodes from their home.


It's funny that normal people are treated like shit, because they are dont expect people to use the internet full time like businesses, they think everyone is so dumb that they only watch videos and stuff, but bitcoiners prove that the internet can be used for more productive things too, not just silly things.

This is one of the biggest issues that people are not yet aware about. Unlimited typically comes with a fair use caveat.

Well of course, and this should be obvious, nothing is unlimined in nature, there is no such thing as unlimited resources.

Only dumb communists and socialists think that way, that is why it's marketed like that, to lure in stupid customers.

(I wonder though if the Bitcoin Unlimited wallet what kind of people it appeals to? :D)

Obviously it is faster, that was not what I was arguing against (ergo strawman).

No, no they don't. That is true if we are talking about the latest high end products (e.g. Samsung 960 Pro) and non-heavy users. The general SSDs don't have that many rewrites (or not an amount that I'd consider *many* since I would run out if I were to run Core on it).

You don't spend enough, and can't draw to conclusion based on anecdotal evidence. Most of these plans world-wide come with a fair use clause, that isn't usually even defined properly (e.g. at what point do you exactly become *unfair).

Imagine random workers (with little to no relevance in the field) in a company deciding the amount of workload that the company servers are able to take. That's pretty much what it is.

Thanks for clarifying

Does anyone know how many outbound peers this guy is connected to?

http://statoshi.info/dashboard/db/bandwidth-usage

http://statoshi.info/dashboard/db/peers

The stats are second to none, but I can't figure out why this guy is getting 1.4TB outbound bandwidth, over what looks like a 30 day period. But it could be he has 150 connections for all I can tell.

You can clearly see it here:
https://i.imgur.com/DGlHK7g.png

Simple as that. Lol thanks!

Could this be a possible attack vector on Bitcoin? We have seen a motivated government put pressure on some business institution before to get its agenda going. So let us say if the banking cartel pressured the governments around the world and then in turn these governments pressured the ISP's to disallow Bitcoin nodes to have internet access, would that be a possible scenario for the start of the Bitcoin witch hunt taking Bitcoin underground?   

Good that they take thier time to make it clear for you. i can really see you understand everything now and very happy with the response you get from them.The devs are actually very busy attending most important issues partaining the bockchain and will also face other aspects that needed attention too.

Chances of hard fork to increase block size is going up, making segwit 95% threshold means it has some problems going live.

700GB, here we come.

That's not a problem, because look, now, the average computer has at least 1 Tb of data, so I guess in 4 years, it will be something like 3 Tb.

If you look at the numbers, 700GB is not much in today's world, as it has been stated repeatedly.

The problem would rather be about the threshold to keep the network propagation reliability reasonable wrt to the total number of transactions in a given amount of time.

Right now, there is a transaction jam on the Bitcoin queue (https://www.bitcoinqueue.com/details/2d.html), but that is mostly caused by the steady increase in Bitcoin price. There is no question that a higher tx/sec throughput is needed in the long run though.

5Go per month ... not a big deal (1 BDRip ...  ::) ).

for an entery financial network ? Priceless.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img903/7506/Lx7d4E.gif

Here is another thought. Did it not occur to anyone that Bitcoin might not really be able to scale to the Visa standard? How big does a block have to be to fit in 2000 - 3000/s worth of transactions in there?

I have noticed that only some of the centralized Bitcoin based services, miners and exchanges are in a hurry to fork to Bitcoin Unlimited. If the nodes follow the whims of the said entities which are really what can be considered part of the "Bitcoin Elite" then Bitcoin has debased itself as a project controlled by an oligarchy.

The math is rather simple for providing a estimate. In theory, Bitcoin can do 7 TPS at 1 MB. However, in real world usage we are talking about 3 TPS. In order to reach 3000 TPS (Visa can do a lot more) you would need 1000MB blocks (over 50 TB of storage per year). Bitcoin, as a decentralized network, will likely never be able to scale up to Visa without additional layers. Segwit can do 14 TPS in theory (testnet block with ~8+k transactions).

As I always say, the primary reason to rush adoption, while hurting decentralization, is greed.

I do not think it is greed but more like desperation. Almost all the individuals and the venture capitalists who have invested millions of dollars in different Bitcoin businesses do not look like they will make any money in their investments. They could be blaming it on the scalability problem so now they are rushing a hard fork to bigger blocks at the expense of the network.

The only Bitcoin businesses that are really making money are the popular darknet market sites.

There's zero evidence for that, the overwhelming majority of mining pools understand that on-chain throughput can't compete with VISA. All hard-forks have to offer is on-chain increases, and all in the crudest way possible. You're spreading FUD saying things like that.

I am sorry if it sounds like FUD. It is only an opinion and it may come out strong for some. If I am mistaken about the individuals and the venture capitalists not making back their investments then please list the Bitcoin companies that are making money today. Let us start with the Bitcoin businesses that Roger Ver has invested since he is the most vocal supporter of Bitcoin Unlimited.

I would guess that only some major exchanges and darknet market sites are the only ones really making money.

Why are you talking about businesses when I'm talking about mining pools? Who's Roger Ver?

There must be some kind of misunderstanding. Why were you talking about mining pools? I was talking about venture capitalists not making back their investments in Bitcoin companies in the post of mine that you quoted.

Are you serious about the 2nd question?

How exactly does a quantum computer attack the blockchain. I thought the only risk was QC's brute forcing certain private keys with a ton of bitcoins.

But i don't really that as an attack on the blockchain

You still haven't answered adequately. Why are you saying that any Bitcoin business, mining or not, is rushing to fork the blockchain, when none are?

If I remember, there was a quote of Satoshi that said that some day the nodes will be placed in specialised data centers.

NO

The size of the blockchain may look exponential if you look from the beginning but it's actually limited by a linear function. It is currently growing as fast as it can so the rate will continue and the size will not grow exponentially.
Current speed is the max speed, and it is about 1MB each 10 minutes. It will not go much faster than this without a change in the protocol (ie a fork)

And the Segwit fork was released today. Let's hope it becomes activated sooner rather than later.

If there is never a fork to add extra transaction capacity, then the blockchain will be limited to current max blocksize x ~10minutes

What are the chances of never increasing the block size beyond 1mb? Is it a case of when, not if? and is the when, more likely to be sooner rather than later?

Will we see a negotiations on increasing the 1mb size cap in order for segwit to see the light of day?

November 15th is the signaling start day. So 2 weeks worth of blocks (if everyone is already signaling by then) + 2 weeks worth of blocks (fallout period) after the starting day. This come down to mid December (earliest).

It would be really hypocritical to claim that one wants on chain scaling and then stall Segwit.

That is not good...

Segwit IS an increase of the blocksize cap, it increases to 4MB.

We're getting 4mb blocks with segwit? really? Don't believe you; i wanna see that in the code  :P

function max_block_size(block_timestamp):
...
...
size_start = 4000000
...
...
//ok, everyone do the Carlton dance

what's the miner acceptance threshold % or did that get removed?

https://i.imgur.com/eH4aEJM.png

Actually, the BU hurdle is not so bad.

https://i.imgur.com/iUQ3eSi.png

It's not as simple as that, but I kept it simple, just for you. Suffice to say: the max size of each block mined will be 4MB.

And I don't have to prove anything to trolls, it's you that has to prove your propaganda nonsense. Everyone who's been follwing Bitcoin develpoment knows the details by now, you're only demonstrating how ignorant (and loud mouthed) you are

hey buddy. chill. you have a bitcoin or two; i have a bitcoin or two. that means we have more in common than the 7bn people who are yet to have a bitcoin or two.

removing some signature data from transactions to reduce file size isn't an increase in block size. not sure how a hard limit of 1mb can become a hard limit of 4mb.

What you probably mean is you can get 4mb worth of transactions using current data structures into 1mb of block space after segwit is deployed and accepted?

It's 4MB total, whatever way you try to dress it up. Which can't be done now. Hence the fork.

The current max block size of Bitcoin is 1mb.

Hence the fork.

And it will still be 1mb if the fork reaches activation.

Don't forget that there will be 3MB extra available too.

Definitely with this need to do something right now. Large volume of data can have a negative impact on the decentralization whole bitcoin network, but the other side after 4 years high capacity storage devices for ordinary users will also be available at a lower price.

indeed, because synchronization js deciding if your bitcoin core is gonna work, that's why the bandwidth is be very prominent, and you will also need a high capacity storages.

Lets get this straight.

segwit will allow the segregation of the signing, ie to be separated out of the block size count.

So, the 1mb cap stays allowing more transaction throughput, but the blockchain will see more data overall. I think that's your basic point.

Given the questions in the OP, the blockchain will grow potentially with an exponential curve until it hits max capacity under the segwit model?

700GB in 4 years? It could be more than that, signatures inclusive.

I think I got my wording wrong. What I meant to say is that they are supporting, not rushing, the hard fork for bigger blocks. From all the news that goes thru in this forum we know Roger Ver is one of Bitcoin Unlimited's biggest supporters, we also know Brian Armstrong supports bigger blocks and now it appears that Bitmain are also supporting Bitcoin Unlimited, if the rumors are true. Surely there are others among the "Bitcoin elite" who wants the hard fork to happen.

If the nodes follow the whims of the the Bitcoin elite and does switch to Bitcoin Unlimited then that could be a sign that Bitcoin could be controlled by an oligarchy.

Surely it means that Segwit will free the blocks enough that it would allow, in paper,  4mb worth of transactions? Please explain more if I got it wrong. Because if it really increases the blocks to 4mb each then that would also need a hard fork, right?

Forgive me for the stupid question. My first impression of Segwit was that they would remove data from the blocks to fit in more transactions allowed in each block with no increase in the block size necessary.

It's basically an accounting trick.

When you sign a bitcoin transaction you need to use both your public and private key to prove ownership. You can't let the world know your private key. So the signing process hides your private key. This hiding of your private key process creates a lot of data, relative to the other data used when you make a transaction.

Segwit, basically, removes your signing information into another data table once your transaction is signed and accepted into the blockchain as a valid transaction.

Table 1 = data necessary to validate blocks and maintain the integrity of the blockchain. This includes data that gets counted within the 1mb block size.

Table 2 = your removed signature validation data. This does not get included in the data count when looking at the 1mb block size.

So given the main question in the OP, accepting segwit soft fork will basically mean the blockchain now allows more transaction data to be included in the 1mb block cap, but with the 'discarded' signing data now also forming part of the overall blockchain data size.

Except the signatures won't be discarded by default, or at least I don't believe so.

And it will take time for all 4MB to get filled up: the original 1MB will hold the transaction data only, but the extra 3MB can only be used for signatures. Lightning settlement transactions are the type of transaction that will be balanced to the signature-heavy extreme such that the whole 3MB gets filled up.

With the way we use the blockchain today, Segwit will supposedly fill the whole 1MB in the original transactions block, and 700kB (out of 3MB) in the signatures block. So it'll be the equivalent of having 1.7MB of transactions & signatures in the traditional style of blocks that we're doing today. It'll take a bit more evolution in peoples habits using the software (and development/growth time for 2nd layers like Lightning) to fill up the 4MB total.

If you take a look at some testnet blockchain explorers, you will encounter a few different types of blocks. In general, the heavier the multisignature usage is, the closer will the *block size* reach 4 MB. However, a whole different story will be *told* if Bitcoin Core upgrades to Schnorr signatures (where multisignature style transactions would be of similar or equal size to standard transactions).

Ah, the ratio between the tx block and the signature block has to reflect the average signature size, hence all the "block weight" language used to describe the signature block structure. So the ratio gets a little tighter if we drop ECDSA for Schnorr sigs. Cool, the transaction data should get prioritised in the ratio if it can be done right (and Schnorr has other benefits over ECDSA also). Is the Schnorr scheme not relatively new though?

Since posting the OP, the blockchain has gone from

https://i.imgur.com/9LoF3wF.png

~81GB, to ~88GB

So, a little over my monthly growth prediction, but it grew by 5% between end of Sept and end of Oct.

Correct. The expected 1.7 MB is based on the current real world usage (primarily P2SH). r/btc recently tried to spread FUD that for 1.7MB worth of transactions, Segwit requires 4 MB of data (which is wrong on so many levels).

Not just a 'little tighter'. Multisignature size after Schnorr will be trivial in comparison to the current one, we are talking about much smaller size or the same size as a 1-of-1 (this depends on whether you want to know who signed messages).

Kind-of, but it's the *gold standard* of digital signing algorithms.

You should definitely keep historical data, so that we can compare with 2017 (with 'after-Segwit data').

My 4% to 5% guestimate was based off some data.

If segwit gets accepted by miners, no reason why it shouldn't, we'll have to wait for 1-3 months to see evidence of the impact on blockchain growth.

Any predictions?  For example, will the growth rate remain at 4-5% or move up to 5-8%, or something else?

It won't grow exponentially people..

nope. generally the switch of the signatures allow 1.6x-2x capacity depending on number of sigs of a multisig address or multi-input vs single input.
this is done by splitting the tx data from the signatures
1mb base (tx data) 3mb witness(signatures)=4mb total potential weight

the "witness" part (3mb) which brings cores total weight to 4m wont be utilised fully straight away, but will be used later to allow new features such as confidential payment codes where the weight area can store this payment code as extra data outside the base block and inside the witness area.

thus, lets say we have ~2500 tx a block today for 1mb. (traditional transactions)
the average scaling proposed is 4500tx if everyone was to move funds and use only segwit style transactions..
4500tx:~1.8mb weight (tx data=1mb base... signatures=~0.8mb witness = ~1.8mb weight used)

but that leave the witness area capacity with (2.2mb) spare for other later uses like scrambling sensitive data for privacy.(confidential payment codes)
making about 4500tx+CFP:4mb if fully utilising the weight (base and witness area) for other such features.

however if we were to accept 4mb of data was no longer "bandwidth heavy" now that core have stopped the bandwidth heavy doomsday debate we could have had 5000tx:2mb(traditional).. or 10,000tx:4mb(traditional)

but instead the best average we can hope for is
4500tx:2mb in 2017 and 4500tx+CPF:4mb in 2018

unless we go for 2mb base 2mb witness=4mb weight - yes this means segwit still gets to be used for all the segwit fanboys
meaning we can have 9000tx using segwit but not having confidential payment codes

THIS
It's linear, not exponential


you can also fit a quadratic function to your graph
but it's capped by a linear function
segwit may change the slope, but still linear

my prediction: your 5% will start to decrease asymptotically towards 0%

ill just leave this here
https://i.imgur.com/kei32hk.png

you must still be on dial up or something

700GB can be downloaded in less than a day on 4G Connection (80mb)

it would only take 9 hours to download 700GB today on a 200mb connection (fibre)
(which are available in certain developing countries already for $50/month)

you might want to look at:
http://www.download-time.com/ (http://www.download-time.com/)

700GB in 4 years will be nothing in most countries

No. Please do not post when you don't know what you're talking about. The bottleneck currently is not, and is likely not going to be the download speed.

You're assuming that the 8 nodes that you're connected to can provide you with a full speed download at all times for that speed. As mentioned above, the bottleneck is going to be the validation time.

Do you still need to validate blocks when you use a bootstrap?

Why will bitcoin be gone? Won't there be a new way we can revive or keep it going? That worries me what you said now lol. So what will happen then? We just kind of got started.

This has been obsolete with the introduction of faster-synchronization. in 0.10.0. It will be slowed than using the client.

Ignore that guy and his FUD, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Once Bitcoin moves away from ECDSA it should be quantum proof for the foreseeable future.

According to you current rate is 4% monthly so this 4% would definitely increase to 6 to 9% monthly because adoption of bitcoin is taking very fast now a days. All these 7 years from 2009 to 2016 Hutton was in dark but now only people are recognising its value so it's adoption will definitely affect in its monthly growth rate.

I see, i'm used to bootstrapping old altcoins, didn't know this. thanks.

False. Blocks are already primarily full on average, thus there is no additional space to jump by 50-100% in terms of blockchain growth regardless of adoption. If you were talking about Segwit, which I'm sure that you're not, then it would be an entirely different story.

This has nothing to do with the subject. Go (signature) spam somewhere else.

They are usually based on outdated Bitcoin Core versions (most newer coins are as well). You can read about the change here (https://bitcoin.org/en/release/v0.10.0#faster-synchronization).

According to Gregory Maxwell, even Core does not validate all transactions.

I would point out that this is totally counter to the concept of Bitcoin being a trustless currency, but The Devs^tm have spoken.

[citation needed]

please, can you elaborate on this? do you have a link or something? I'd like to know what escapes validation.

I understand that things that it reads from disk are not validated, and only a few last blocks are verified at startup, but they were validated before they were written, so everything gets validated. Doesn't it?

Bump, just because its better than my chart.

What will the next halving bring?

edits

(fucking hate mobile auto-correct sometimes)

I understand your request for a citation. Seems implausible, right? I agree that the burden of proof - as far as 'according to GM' is concerned - is on me. A cursory check does not turn up a quote. I will continue to look. However, you point out the issue yourself:

"only a few last blocks are verified at startup, but they were validated before they were written, so everything gets validated. Doesn't it?"

If one is starting up a new node, and only the newest blocks are verified, you are not verifying the older blocks. You are trusting others to have done the verification of the earlier blocks. Ergo, Core does not validate all transactions.

To some this may be an acceptable risk. However, it is most certainly not operating in a trustless mode.

IOW to answer your question - to wit: "Doesn't it?", the answer is: 'no, it doesn't'.

The usual trolling nonsense from you, j breher


If we were to remedy this issue, here's how: re-validate every transaction in evvery block in the entire block chain, EVERY time someone loads up their Bitcoin network. Great proposal jbreher, it'll only take people a few days every time they want to send a transaction, lol. Tell the BU devs to add that "upgrade" to the latest version, then someone might at least think that you believe what you're saying :D

Pepe thinks this graph is absolutely misleading.
Why make assumptions based on something back in 2012?
Also, in 2016 the blockchain is 100 GB big, and not 350 GB as graph wants to make Pepe believe.

Pepe is not stupid, you know?
So why fudge the numbers like that?
What is the point?

the green glow line is not actual data.. its what could have been POTENTIAL if every block was filled from 2009.
the orange glow line is not actual data.. its what could have been POTENTIAL if the hard fork was implemented in block 210000

the funny part is that i actually moved some of the goal posts in favour of the anti-bloater. afterall satoshi wanted the hardfork in block 115000
but based on other historic things i just set the hypothetical line at 210,000

but those lines are meaningless in reality and are just showing hypothetical

anyway

actual data was the grey filled in shape.. more realistic POTENTIAL data growth is in the other grey shape

all the lines are hypothetical.. the greyed out shape is more of the actual and then expectant results based on the hypothetical lines and scenarios of delay in timeline to produce and activate features and then user adoption of those features.

here. ill throw another graph in
this time the orange glow hypothetical is based on:

and the important demonstration (grey shape data) has the assumption this time of segwit and other features never activating
https://i.imgur.com/jz5RWk2.png

not sure why anyone should actually care about the green /orange glow lines as they are just arbitrary lines. its the grey shape that should be emphasised.

Indeed. I would prefer if that was removed in the next update.

I think you need a pair of glasses mister Pepe.

I think that it the point. The graph was supposed to represent the potential growth that the blockchain size might see in the future (as it clearly says "potential").

Well, no, Carlton. I would advocate that every transaction be validated at least once by each client. Upon initial download.

I would be more than happy to trust that data on local storage had not been meddled with. Heck, we've got the world's best cryptographers, right? We could secure data-at-rest with some sort of hash or something to ensure that nobody de-installed the drive, modified the data, and reinstalled it since the last time we ran the node. If that were a worry.

I am just pointing out that -- with the current Core implementation -- we do indeed need to trust in the goodness of others. For validation of older transactions. We are decidedly not operating in a trustless manner. I am heartened to learn that -- on this point at least -- you agree.

It will grow but I'm not sure by that much.  What size would it have to get to in order to be prohibitive for users to not want to download it at their current connection speeds?

Ok, Pepe now understands.
When you put hypotheticals on top of assumptions which are based on suppositions then Pepe's head can't gain a foot hold and gets confused.
Thanks for clarifying though, Pepe now understands that this is just one giant mental masturbation (*).

*Intellectual activity that serves no practical purpose

Well, currently we are talking about a ridiculously low speed: 1 MB /10 /60 = 1.666 kb/s. We can't really estimate where the problem will start popping up for most users. The blockchain is already heavy as is, and the bigger it gets, the less people will want to use a full wallet or run a full node. Current average (global) internet speeds are almost able to download 1 GB blocks under 10 minutes (which requires less than 2 MB/s). However, this is way beyond the realm of possibility at this time, because if they were only half full on average we'd have over 2 TB worth of blocks each month (500 x 6 x 24 x 30 = 2 160 000).

---

I think a good portion would probably give up if we were talking about 100 GB monthly (probably even less) in blockchain growth.

https://i.imgur.com/uqmI901.png

Thais came to my mind a few days ago, how can the aize be lowered tho? Can it be separated somehow, archived? Also, the usage of wallets (if people do not wish to download 100gb) will decrease, will that effect the btc somehow or will people switch to the new way of storing and mining btc?

lauda why do you go from talking about a block of 1mb.. to jump immediately to blocks of [random number] or  22.8mb (100gb a month)..
why are you not thinking rational of what was previously consensual safe numbers of something like
2mb in 2015, 4mb by 2018.. 8mb by 2021.. 16mb by 2024

why are you always trying to push a doomsday of atleast a decade away to be a problem of today.. seriously 16 years ago people were on dialup and the largest hard drive was 4gb.. so what may seem a problem today when you scream blue murder about any randomly large number you seem to pull out of a hat.. wont be a problem in a decade. you dont seems to get the concept of natural progressive growth

if you want to talk about the possibility of blocks of 22.8mb atleast assume that we would get there in a few years and not today.
you know, like emphasis that you are speculating the year 202X and not actually talking about 2016/2017
because all your doing with your fake dooms days of 1mb today 22mb tomorrow is creating ammo to avoid safe and agreeable amounts of 2mb 4mb pushing the fake rhetoric just so that one group of devs can do their own thing.

if you actually came to the realisation that there is no need for one entity to make 5000 input/outputs in one tx. you would realise that limiting sigops and using libsecp256k1 optimisations would have solved your other fake doomsday of 'quadratics'.
you would at this point of reading this post probably want to rebut that yes quadratics wont be an issue by limiting sigops, but malleability wont be solved and double spends are still an issue.
which i would rebut that double spends are still an issue even after a malleability fix due to RBF, CPFP and other new features added to mess with unconfirmed transactions.
you would rebut that malleability also has issues for LN..
i would rebut that LN has even bigger issues to overcome first. such as the address reuse dilemma

---

i actually laughed that you were on the 2mb was bad bandwagon but now 4mb is acceptable bandwagon.
care to comment on your revelation concerning BLOAT(hard drive and bandwith doomsdays you were squawking just months ago).

also care to comment how half of that 4mb weight will be bloated with privacy features and other mundane data rather than expanding the capacity of actual transactions.
yep thats right. cores 1mb base 4mb weight. will be at most 2mb(~1.8) of serialised(full tx+sig included data) and 2mb(~2.2) left vacant until filled with confidential payment codes, and whatnot
EG
1mb base 0.8mb witness.... leaving 2.2mb spare for feature bloat rather than more transactions = total 4mb weight

ok lets word it a different way.
whats your future mindset proposition and propaganda preference:

1mb base 0.8mb witness 2.2mb bloat for future features, for 4500tx
or
2mb base 1.6mb witness for 9000tx

where in both cases, bloat is ~<4mb

how would you like to see 4mb of data used??

In this thread some guy talks about the 700GB in 4 years prediction, which seems to be wrong according to DannyHamilton. It seems there is nothing worry about. You would need to raise the blocksize + have blocks full all the time to reach numbers like those... so the blockchain will be lighter.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1667806.0

the exponential graph on earlier pages are wrong not so much about the number.. but how he assumes that number based purely on an curve
because he didnt take into account the consensus limits.. which holds back natural growth
EG
if segwit does not activate, we will see the bloat held under the consensus limit of 1mb a block. meaning maximum bloat in 4 years for the entire blockchain will be about 300gb.

but if segwit was activated within the year followed by a year of adoption.. we will see the bloat held under the limit of ~1.8mb a block. meaning maximum bloat in 4 years for the entire blockchain will be about 300gb.

but if other features was activated followed by a year of adoption to fill the remaining 2.2mb of weight spare.. we will see the bloat held under the consensus limit of ~4mb a block. meaning maximum bloat in 4 years for the entire blockchain will be about 650gb.

thus its not a curve.. but a curve then line, curve then line, curve then line

ofcourse thats all theory.
because segwit may not activate or may activate sooner
also everyone may move their funds over to segwit compatible HD seed addresses sooner to all use it sooner causing bloat to hit the red line in 2017 instead of 2018 and then if other features fill the remaining weight sooner causes the bloat to hit the yellow line sooner and thus we have more than 650gb of bloat in 4 years. which makes 700mb+ possible and not irrational number. even if the OP of topic didnt come to the number using a more logical/rational methodology

Calm down. This has nothing to do with what you're writing about, not has it anything to do with what the user wanted. I gave them the current internet speed required to download the maximum size of a block (currently) and some arbitrary guess at which people would likely not bother at all. He asked for *size* at which users would not want to download at current speeds, not what was consensually safe or not (which I clearly stated that we are disregarding). One more time: the 100GB per month is completely arbitrary.

Everything else is doomsday, propaganda, mumbo jumbo not relevant to this thread.

will probably reference this in update on chart.


https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/5azo8c/eli_40_how_do_we_get_17x_the_current_transaction/

devs should just build the clients with a built-in highly pruned blockchain, and let that be the starting point for syncing old blocks when running that client.

nodes dont need the history from day 1 to work, all they need is a starting point they know will agree with the rest of the network.

it means placing some trust in the client you run, but that's already the case today, and it kinda always will be... unless core not only insists that everyone must be able to run a node, but code one from scratch too.

So exactly what is this supposed to do? Centralize Bitcoin in order to avoid downloading a part of the blockchain? That's a terrible idea. If you don't have enough storage space right now, you can run a pruned node.

False.

all it would centralize is the src from which you get this "built-in highly pruned blockchain start point". but i guess you could go a step futher and get the network to validate that this "start point" is not a lie, and does in fact accurately represent the past history. hell the network itself could make this start point available for download, instated of having the network send the blockchain in its entirety .

if you subscribe to the idea that you dont need to trust the code behind the client you choose to run because its been peer reviewed by many people and is known to do exactly what you'd expect it to do.
then it isn't much of a stretch to say that you dont need to trust the "built-in highly pruned blockchain start point" for the same reason.

does it mean that every miner wool have 700 GB of data ?
I don't have idea about that. does blockchain reside in all miners system or it is stored in a particular system? But well 700 GB is quit a large number. and database if only 3 columns of 700GB would be a huge database.

Miners find ways to avoid having to run full nodes with a full data set. Don't worry about the miners use of full nodes, worry about the miners being concentrated into small pockets of big industrial groups. All it takes is for two or three big miners to collude and they can fix the game to suit their ends. The only thing stopping them from colluding to rig the game is self-interest so as not to collapse the market price. If they get a government visit, however, governments don't care about corporate self-interests. Maybe we should have a mining Canary?

It is looking like users will just be users. So for the average person they can just use Bitcoin without worrying about such things as the backbone of the system.

We are likely to be in a transition state where home connections are going to reach max capacity. The transition then is going to be towards professionally hosted nodes.

This guy on r/btc posted some stats about his node consumption. He has 200mbit download and 20mbit upload, which is a very good connection in the western world:


He is reaching his connection limits, but that does depend on how he sets his in / out connections.


https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/5b0g4x/remember_that_time/

what do you mean? there is a blocksize limit and blocks come in predefined frequency defined by difficulty

Well, not every node requires 146 connections. While I commend that user on his beneficial fanout, it is little wonder that his meager 20Mb/s upload rate is a limitation. While I've not seen a survey, I would assume 'a handful of up connections and a balanced number of down connections' might be a more pervasive usage model. Maybe divide by ten?

6th degree of separation/kevin bacon logic:
knowing theres under 6000 nodes
if everyone had 146 connections. then everyone would receive data within under 2 hops(relays)
146*146=21316 nodes get it
if everyone had 6 connections. then everyone would receive data within 5 hops(relays)
6*6*6*6*6=7776 nodes get it
and so on
9 connections is 4 hops(relays) needed 9*9*9*9=6561 nodes get it
18 connections is 3 hops(relays) needed 18*18*18=5832 nodes get it
75 connections is 2 hops(relays) needed 75*75=5625 nodes get it

i would suggest anything over 75 is overkill and only for pools.
and if you do have limited bandwidth you can bring the numbers down to save bandwidth while still connecting to the network and sending data happily and healthily.

Can I use your 6 degrees of separation in a white paper? How can I attribute you or how do you want to be attributed? Pm if preferred.

6 degree's of separation is a theory that has existed for decades they have made movies about it, drinking games about it. google it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation

its not my theory.. so use the source(Frigyes Karinthy in 1929) and then make your own calculations :D

The problem with pruned mode is... you need to download the entire blockchain the first time in order to enable it, so the problem persists... will we be able to enable pruned mode without having to download all of the blockchain?

the only problem with pruned mode is once you have pruned it.. you are then not part of the 5500 full nodes able to help the network.
in laymens terms no newbies to the network can leach the entire network data of the last 7 years from you. so you become second class and people drop their connection from you because you cant hand them what they desire.

this affects the 6 degree of separation and also the distribution of the blockchain.

if people dont want to hold all the data.. then just download electrum. stop messing with full nodes! edit: if you dont want to be a full node

That's related to bandwidth then, not storage. I don't see how this is a problem though, as you're usually presented with two choices:
1) Run a full client and do full validation.
2) Run a SPV wallet without full validation.

The total blockchain size will keep getting higher which will keep making 1 harder.

Nobody claimed that they were, ergo strawman.

There's nothing wrong with a pruned node.

if ""core" want to pretend its the "core" program for bitcoin. then core should stick to full node status.
if core want to offer light node. then core should be VERY CLEAR that pruning reduces status a node has in the network.

seriously stop shoe shining the devs..

you say core have not said X. but they are clearly not saying Y either. X needs to be clarified to make people aware of Y
EG
if they have not said pruned does not help the network. but also not clearly saying pruned enabling pruned reduces network support. then saying atleast something should be said.

but hey, brush it under the carpet like a good old fanboy right? and stick to the core is utopia rhetoric, right?

This post is useless and is not relevant at all to anything that has been said here. Just let the franky1 from the other shift do the talking, you're only ruining your own image.

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Once again, there is nothing wrong with a pruned node and it has been clearly stated that it is different from a full node.

EG there is nothing wrong with electrum. but electrums network status is not the same as a full node.
no point trying to say that cores pruned mode is the same as full node by saying "theres nothing wrong"

its what you dont say and what is not clarified makes just a bad case as what could have been said

after all people believe they are downloading core because its a full node.
so they need to be informed that using cores pruned mode is not a full node status.

also trying to sell the fiction that everyone can be a full node without worry of bloat is misleading and hiding the truth simply by "never saying" it doesnt make the a full node. because people think just running core makes them a full node no matter what features they run or dont run
EG saying that running an old node is perfectly fine. when it should be highlighted that updates reduce old nodes fullnode status.

seems you are sounding more like carlton again. im guessing he has retrained you as a fanboy sheep.

please think more about USERS, than you do about protecting core. your getting obviously too involved in the fanboy rhetoric more so in what USERS need to know to make educated decisions.

being a fullnode means you have to keep the full data to be a full part of the network.
meaning bloat (this topic) is relevant for full nodes

again before lauda derailed the topic
if you dont want to be a full node by storing the blockchain.. you might aswell just use electrum

end of

No, I mean in relation to optimal bitcoin node numbers / distribution.

You can come up with a variation of the 6 degrees of separation concept for bitcoin. Then I can give you attribution

we are digressing off the topic of bloat.
but to answer your questions

many different devs say 9 is a nice round number as a minimum healthy node.

im not interested in attribution.
just use the theory from back in 1929 and make your own calculations.

but keep this in mind
the other thing about the degrees of separation theory is that, the separations are not always organised.

EG 3 degrees of separation, where they can all claim they are they are connected to 3 other people without having to mix with any new faces.
meaning
the concept is that its all organised where each person is a stranger (top part)
the reality is that there are only 4 in the clusters where each person does know 3 other people (bottom part) so both states are true

https://i.imgur.com/q4MPhBx.png

even in bitcoin we can have connection loops(clusters) where a few hops away a node is connected back to a node thats also a few hops behind him too. which is something that cannot be controlled much in a true decentralized network.
bitcoin has got some good ways to mitigate potential loops. but not perfect

and messes up the count of how many hops it really needs to get to everyone on the network due to some hops looping back on themselves

but anyway just use the theory from back in 1929 and make your own calculations.

OK, thanks.

It is on topic because of the optimal use of bandwidth, especially as the chain grows.

Going into Jan 2017, the 100GB prediction is accurate, so still on track for 700GB blockchain by the time of the next halving.

SegWit acceptance and or an increase in the block size will cement the prediction.

is not that a good thing  ???
Well, it means that every year, bitcoin users is increasing, and I think blockchain need to upgrade the storage they have. I think it would be better in 2017, because I think, in 2017, people began making their wallet, whether it's in blockchain or anywhere else.

That 700GB is very huge file to download. It will takes time if your connection is slow,like most us here (maybe). I think its much better to used online wallet but the disadvantage is, you don't  have control with your  it.

Depends who gets their way. Could be much larger than that

Wasn't your prediction already debunked, without Segwit or a block size increase?[1] The maximum that it can grow per year is around ~52 GBs right now (assuming all blocks are 1 MB and found every 10 minutes on average). Due to finite rules, you can't assume a % monthly growth (since the 'amount it grew' will be increasing as well).

[1] I don't remember where we left this thread at and I don't want to read all that franky1 stuff to verify either.

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Obviously it's a bad thing, and the rest of your post is useless.

You should stop spamming since you're very obvious.

@franky1

That guidance was put into the white paper, thanks.

It's all now part of a model that Satoshi predicted, but with some new stuff we've introduced to add encrypted security for those launching a Bitcoin full node using SPV's.

We're also going to be looking at adding 2FA and hardware key generation, but that needs more time to spec out.

http://heliumpay.com