Bitcoin Forum

source: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/61mxuj/block_size_limit_debate_history_lesson/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/61mxuj/block_size_limit_debate_history_lesson/)

Pre 2013

Bitcoin users and developers have near universal agreement that the block size limit is a temporary feature must be raised and/or removed. Preparing for this hard fork is one of lead developer Gavin's top priorities.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140328052630/https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Talk:Scalability (https://web.archive.org/web/20140328052630/https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Talk:Scalability)

    MAX_BLOCK_SIZE has always been planned to increase as needed. That limitation should be ignored. theymos 17:15, 4 March 2011 (GMT)

    What Theymos said. Increasing MAX_BLOCK_SIZE will be done when "lightweight, header-only" client mode is done. Until then, block size has to be kept under control.--Gavin Andresen 00:19, 5 March 2011 (GMT)

However development priorities are not very unified, as noted by one observer:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=122013.msg1390298#msg1390298 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=122013.msg1390298#msg1390298)

    When I joined this forum I was completely wrong calling the Bitcoin core development team "Bitcoin bunker". Now that I understand the situation better I know that there's no single bunker. There are numerous one-or-two-person cubbyholes that may occasionally form the aliances to shoot at the occupant of another cubbyhole. The situation conforms better to the distributed paradigm inherent in the design of Bitcoin.

2013

For the first time in Bitcoin's history, arguments begin to erupt regarding the desirability of increasing the block size limit.

Many of the proponents in favor of making the block size limit permanent are investors in competing currencies/payment systems and this fact was not lost on observers of the era and can easily be confirmed by viewing the profiles of the participants:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.0;all (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.0;all)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144895.0;all (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144895.0;all)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=221111.0;all (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=221111.0;all)

In May of 2013, Peter Todd funds the production of a propaganda video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZp7UGgBR0I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZp7UGgBR0I)

None of the claims in this video are true, but it is effective in creating drama. Tensions rise and development work grinds nearly to a halt due to infighting.

BTC market share is 95%.

In December, Gregory Maxwell begins to revive the idea of sidechains along with Adam Back, TheBlueMatt, and other individuals who will go on to form Blockstream.

They begin promoting sidechains as an alternative to Bitcoin scaling.

http://web.archive.org/web/20140226095319/http://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/wizards/2013-12-18.txt (http://web.archive.org/web/20140226095319/http://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/wizards/2013-12-18.txt)

2014

April 7: Unwilling to deal with the drama any further, Gavin steps down as lead developer. At the time the BTC market share is 90%.

Sidechain discussion is well underway, yet a few people still manage to speak up to point out that sidechains should not be treated as an alternative to scaling Bitcoin. You may notice some familiar posters in these threads:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=566704.0;all (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=566704.0;all)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563972.0;all (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563972.0;all)

In October, Blockstream.com publishes their sidechain whitepaper:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=831527.0;all (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=831527.0;all)

The response is underwhelming.

On November 17, Blockstream announces the securing of $21 million in seed funding.

BTC market share is 91%.

2015

On June 22, Gavin Andresen proposes BIP101 to increase the block size limit as the conclusion of his work performed since stepping down as lead developer.

On August 6, Mike Hearn announces BitcoinXT, a full node implementation that includes BIP101.

Many Blockstream employees, including Adam Back, call this effort a "coup", a claim that can not be made without admitting they believe themselves to be the legitimate rulers of Bitcoin.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/the-bitcoin-for-is-a-coup (http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/the-bitcoin-for-is-a-coup)

In October, Blockstream employee Pieter Wuille proposes "Segregated Witness":

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1210235.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1210235.0)

Post-2015

This is the time period most Bitcoin users are familiar with, which really only represents the tail end of a five year long fight to prevent the planned block size limit increase.

The BTC market share has been steadily dropping since the anti-scaling propaganda began in late 2012/early 2013.

It currently stands at 66%.

https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/ (https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/)

As you can see, attempts have been made since 2013 to increase the blocksize.

But Gavin was too nice, he gave up and stepped down - opening a massive vacuum in leadership where Blockstream stepped in and decided to keep 1mb forever.

Now BTC marketshare is at 66% and dropping.

This is gonna get a lot uglier before it gets better.

The propaganda about a "contentious" fork is laughable. There has to be a fork for Bitcoin to continue onwards, otherwise it will end up in the trashcan of history and replaced by altcoins with decisive leadership and sensible scaling procedures.

Oh well, I'll be waiting with popcorn in hand.

never saw that before.  i guess the icon of the big scary bank swallowing up the pools is pretty scary.

I don't see why larger block sizes would impact government regulations about mining pools.  Sounds like a baseless assertion.

There are many baseless assertions that have been used to argue against big blocks over the years.

Since 2013?

???

I thought the first attempt to increase the block size was made by jgarzik in October of 2010 when he released a code change for Core that would accept larger blocks.

This debate has been ongoing from the moment Satoshi put the limit in.  7 years later there's still no consensus.

Speaking of the debate, now that the results are available on your poll, can you unlock the thread for discussion?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1831433.msg18319331#msg18319331

Trust me, the more centralized Bitcoin becomes, whether with the miners/ledger/devs/exchanges and etc,
the more regulatable it becomes under current legal mechanisms. No lawyer would disagree with that
statement nor ever state that governments would not attempt to assert control into the protocol directly.

It is extremely obvious to even the most inexperienced lawyer. Even family law attorneys would know.
Besides simple code bugs that could hurt Bitcoin's reputation, centralization leading to regulation is
Bitcoin's largest threat. Any lawyer who is knowledgeable stating otherwise is a shitty lawyer.

When Bitcoin started, the idea that every home CPU was a miner and node relay was the reason
why centralization and thus regulation could never happen directly within the protocol. Satoshi
understood this and the lessons from other prior attempts and designed Bitcoin based on this.
It would never be stopped, only because the average person was in control & all over the world.

Over time now, as Bitcoin consolidates and centralizes, the threat of regulation and government
controls becomes stronger and more possible. If you deny this or think it is exaggerated, you must
live a nice simple life where you have nothing to worry about except your cell phone bill and the
scratch on your car. In that case, Satoshi didn't create Bitcoin for you. He made it for liberty.


Satoshi understood Centralization of the network was our enemy.

poetic justice will be when ETH is 1.02x bitcoin market cap.

bittorrent's blocks are 1GB big.

thats right you open the port and start serving a bunch of movies and yes you'll be hitting 1GB /10mins. easy!

Oh, so you are saying everyone is storing all of bittorent's full catalog on their home computers?
Because that is the difference between Btitorrent and our blockchain. We store everything.

no i'm saying look at the decentralized network not.... falling...... apart.......

Lol. Thats a pretty lame argument. The current bitcoin blockchain is over 100GBs.
How many GBs is the average BitTorrent user holding for the their network? If those
users shut down, it is only the loss of your favorite movie, "Dude wheres my car?", but
with Bitcoin it is the loss of independent and decentralized validation.

The two systems work differently.
Comparing them in your way is very simplistic viewpoint and does not actually apply.

fine let's look at Gnutella

I agree with you generally speaking... but I don't agree that smaller blocks are the solution.
Least of all when to this silly idea that pools could be more easily regulated.  

I really don't know about it. I could never comment it on specifically.
Never heard of it outside of Satoshi's statement that I quoted.

The question is: Has Gnutella outsource it's storage to centralized servers,
or are home users still maintaining the bulk of that network's data?

I can't answer or comment, but if they did outsource to large server farms, then
they are no longer a decentralized network, they are centralized and could be
regulated or shutdown depending on the data they are storing and whether
it is illegal or helps facilitate illegal activity.

stop talking nonsense, governments will take over bitcoin easily if blocks are 8MB.

Smaller blocks is not the solution for long term, only the short term fix till technology catches up.
Our only options now is to 1. optimize Bitcoin, 2. create special storage hardware, or 3. second layers.

If we choose to just bump the blocksize, we are ignoring what the real problem is.
Our problem is not user growth or fees, it is that we are a threat to the current world system.

I do not support 1MB forever, I want on-chain scaling too, I understand that on-chain txs are the
most secure and most censorship resistant, but I also accept that we might not be able to scale
safely currently due to technological limitations. Some people can handle the 2MB to 4MB (or more),
other can not at all. Some people are still paying their internet by the byte. But the point is that
the more free disbursed validator nodes we have, the longer we will survive from an attack or
regulation from governments. The only thing that will really destroy Bitcoin is if we push this
system too far too fast. We need to balance over time, not jump to an extreme.

As for your pool regulation comment, I somewhat agree. Miners that gather together into pools to
mine are less susceptible to government control and regulation, but their main mining pool leader is.
So basically, they will need to disburse and form a new pool because the main location of the main
pool leader will always, in theory, be shutdown and litigated against. So as a response, there will
need to be "dark pools" that run over TOR or such like systems. Anyone mining in the light of day,
could be subject to regulation, if the governments decide they want to start doing that. If they
wanted to bust balls, they could claim all miners are money exchanges or money transmitters
and force them to pay fees and get licensed to mine and etc. They could attempt to regulate
them this way and if needed pull their licenses if that miner or mining pool decides to include
txs that the government does not like (ex a wikileaks donation or something). Regulating miners
is not about stopping them or Bitcoin, it is about controlling them so that they do what the
government wants them to do, such as censor certain txs. That is what we must not allow.

I love bitcoin, but I think it is greater than the value or payment platform aspect. I think we need
to slow down to protect this system's long term future. I don't want Bitcoin to die but thrive. IMO
the only way to protect this novel system is to try other systems to scale beside on-chain right now.

I think we are in agreement then. I thought you were saying governments could not.
I agree that at a certain size, the network compounds and becomes vulnerable to different attacks.

We should play a round of r/btc Bingo.

https://i.imgur.com/PZ4TMbB.jpg

---

The primary reason for the price decline is the FUD of an imminent BTU fork, which nobody in their right mind wants. Bitcoin was holding over 80% of the market share steadily, until Antpool & Ver created panic.

https://i.redditmedia.com/jGkQ4jIf37fJMPFFogB94Bu4uHLrS0nchdtG8nsjalA.jpg?w=1024&s=41b0fbd171ee5af4d8d8c18572f44e60

BTC back up to $1020 and BU signaling higher than ever.

LOL, if only you could blame price increases / decreases on whatever imagined problem that you want it to be.

Price is rising / falling because of speculation, period.

Price has risen / fallen during periods of increasing BU hashpower.

Price has risen / fallen during periods of declining BU hashpower.

But go on Lauda, keep grasping at straws, we find it amusing.

You Core supporters love creating alternate realities and then living inside them. You're like one of the liberals who honestly believe Trump colluded with Russia.

It is quite ironic that you state this, considering that a BTU supporter just did the same thing:

---

FYI I'm everything but a liberal; one of the reasons for which I'm familiar with the coercion attempts being used vs. Bitcoin right now.

Block size debate history lesson - a history of declining BTC marketshare

I have an alternative view point.

Why don't your correspond your graph to the problem with Unconfirmed Transactions and increased Delays and Increased Fees.
Those are the real culprits , IMO.  :)

No one would give a crap about blocksize if BTC was handling the transaction load, which it is not!
Ergo the transaction limit and Fee increases are the real cause of the declining market share.

 8)

FYI: