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We should reject BIP 100, it is weird that a core developer propose this BIP.
The miner should't be given too much power.
Of course the miner would like BIP 100, but we are not.

i can't understand why with all those intelligent core guys we cant find a good solution about this problem.

BIP100 or BIP101, bitcoin should never give more power to anybody, at least that is the conclusion reached by thinking from the point of view of Mr SN spirit, i really think we are forgetting that.

Can't understand why all these well-informed bitcointalkers don't know that someone has already come up with one.



Why not have a scheme that puts the software in charge of the blocksize? Instead of the industry, or the miners, anyone else? That is what has been proposed. keep up everybody

I like the adjustable blocksize solution by that less known developer but it seems he's getting ignored because unless you are a famous coder chances are you will go unnoticed. Can someone post the link?

If you start with personal attacks, you already lose the argument.

Dynamic blocksize limit is nonsense.



If it uses wrong parameters and it cause more harms. Blocksize limit should either go up or remain the same, it should never go down.

Why not mix up those ideas and come up with a better solution? Politics or power wasn't the problem here in the first place, it was about the block size. Those problems about who controls, voting power etc. were just brought up because of who proposes what BIP. Each proposal has their own uniqueness and may help bitcoin in any way, so why not mix all of those and come up with a better solution? ???

To be honest, if you look at the arguments against BitcoinXT. It was simply because the BIP was not implemented by the core devs.

If it was bitcoin0.12 we wouldnt have this debate.

That tells you how much we (this forum /community) care about merits of the BIP.

But anyway, BIP101 gives you just that, blocksize limit increase. You might disagree with Gavin's optimistic about the technology growth. Thats about it.

KISS = keep it simple stupid.

Over complex solution for a simple problem is a no no.

It is funny how bitcoiners can't find one good solution to our problem, if this situation of will be appearing every time upgrade will be needed I don't know how bitcoin will survive.
First we had XT vs Core debate, much hate, some serious information - no clear consensus, now we have BNIP 100 vs BIP 101 case, power to the people or power to the miners.
I wonder how much time will pass until one solution will prevail.

i'm sorry maybe it's my fault or just a language barrier ( from my side ), i know there are some "solutions" ( good for some, bad for others ) out there, but what i want to say is that they did not reach a consensus, that's all, i don't want to start a "drama" :)


if this is about me and my phrase "intelligent core guys", im so sorry, was not my intention, i call them "intelligent core guys" because thats what they are, pretty good intelligent guys, dont try to search for hidden intentions please, they have all my respect :)

The good thing is: We have a debate. My guess is, that this is all Gavin really wanted. (I doubt, he will oppose a good solution. I think, he even already showed support for another BIP).

I disagree, that BIP101 gives power to the people. The balance of power stays the same.

This BIP 101 gives power to  2 dictators is insane. Its so stupid that people even believe that crap.

The funny thing is the best solution should be the simplest one:  a predictable blocksize limit increase. Over complex system with votes will cause more flaws than what it fix.

Blocksize limit isnt like network difficulty. It does not need to be adjusted up or down as technology and infrastructure ( bandwidth , storage..) Always go forward.

Mike and Gavin just showed that no devs can impede on bitcoin's development. If they forked it that easily anybody can do it.

Why don't you read this blog post? https://medium.com/@octskyward/an-xt-faq-38e78aa32ff0

a dev should make a BIP that makes block limit increase the same way difficulty increases

Funny? Predictable, rather.
The reason why no good solution is found is simply because there will never be a one-size-fits-all solution.
Any approach will have its advantages and disadvantages, its pros and cons, its upsides and downsides.
The one final solution that will make just about everyone happy is a fairy tale.

The bottom line here is, there is more than one good solution.

But, really is that much power given to miners?

Thinking about it, miners are the most interested in Bitcoin success. If Bitcoin has success, they are earning more value with every Bitcoin mined, so they will likely make decissions that make Bitcoin prosper.

I think you confuse BIP101 and XT. Nonetheless both are open source so can’t really hide anything.

that didnt stop XT from trying.  :P

maybe 2MB now - 4 MB in 2 years and 8MB in 4 years is not that bad...

they must really suck at hiding if they use github and comment their commits and even make websites explaining what they do?

ahh now i understand: YOU are the one hiding your agenda and trying to spread FUD

they hoped it would go unnoticed, or that the NEED to change the limit would force poeple to use XT even tho they disagreed with IP blacklisting and the checkpoint thingy.

lol.... there is no need to run xt if you want to vote for bip101.

please show me code which does blacklist ip's. you cant...

fudfudfud ;)

Prioritizing != blacklisting.
Checkpoint discussion != code change.

I always thought something like this would be ideal. I have been told, however, that a dynamic solution based on actual volume vs. capacity would be easy to attack and lead to more orphaned blocks. Don't really know the details, though. Can anyone help with those? :)

You're right, its not easy to measure the parameter that determines the blocksize limit, which is technology available.

One think blocksize limit can be treated as difficulty, one is completely delusional.

I have noticed that even at today's average 400kb per block transaction data, the synchronization is already painfully slow on a normal PC if you missed several weeks of data. 8MB block will make most of the commercially available computer unable to catch up with the network. The problem is not on the network bandwidth, CPU just can not finish verifying a large block in 10 minutes before the next one arrives

Well, with even Mike Hearn saying that BIP100 is just an idea, I think that we should wait before making harsh assumptions. There's a chance to rethink weaknesses, discuss and implement afterwards. What's good about that however, is that support towards the basis of this proposal has already started forming and it's quite strong. This way I think that there are going to be decent efforts at creating what was expressed in the papers. It's also notable that Jeff is having an 'open' approach for the development.

This just isn't correct.  CPU is not the bottleneck, and will not be the bottleneck.  Your CPU is capable of processing vastly more transaction data than your network card can throw at it.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/115153/bitcoin-xt-fork-can-blacklist-tor-exits-may-reveal-users-ip-addresses

https://github.com/mikehearn/bitcoinxt/commit/5e62628118e7e5df2c19093911d04d197a12d0e7

and here is the list right now.  ;)

That code does not blacklist IPs. It reduces priority of TOR exit node IPs so that in the event of a denial of service attack against that node, clearnet IPs are prioritized higher.  After the attack is over, any disconnected nodes can reconnect.  Does that really sound like a blacklist to you?

The most common definition of "blacklist" is "a list of people or products viewed with suspicion or disapproval." That's exactly what it is. Hearn's justification is that "jamming attacks via Tor have been observed" -- therefore, isolate and compile a list of said [suspicious] IPs. Now we can speculate all day about which IP addresses will end up on that list in the end (whether that means virtually all known proxies, specific regions, etc) or whether there are more nefarious plans at hand.

At the end of the day, trusting a third party to compile a list of suspicious IPs is the definition of centralization and trust.

Nodes are perfectly capable of recognizing IPs that are DDOSing them, and deprioritizing them accordingly. There is no need for a centralized list. There is no need to isolate TOR. There is ZERO justification to push such a centralized solution. So why do people keep doing it?

I can't help but feel ashamed of the bitcoin community when I see these basic things -- which are antithetical to bitcoin -- justified for no reason.

wasn't this the initial gavin proposal? it was discarded because of the need to fork every time, if i'm not mistaken

If we actually had to give anyone some power, it would be the miners. Don't tell me that you would want to give power to random people who aren't actually doing anything for the network (compared to them).
BIP100 is better than BIP101 in any case. However, since BIP100 isn't implemented changes are possible. Someone needs to tell Jeff to implement the dynamic block size from the other proposal into BIP100 (and the 'problem' would be solved).

Well this will eventually happen and this is a decision making process that is taking place at the moment.

For God's sake, why doesn't one of these devs doesn't come up with a BIP that just increases block size, on a fixed or a dynamic schedule with no add-ons, with no giving power to anybody more or less.

Now, after reading more and more, it seems to me that every BIP proposal favors someone, gives advantages to someone, and saves somebody's a**. Even BIP100, after reading more about it.

yep. maybe that proposal is just too complicated and will bring too many problems with it.
iam still in favor of a smooth increase over time 2MB, 4 MB, 8MB, 14 MB...

it should be an easy design.

We have no evidence to indicate that Moore's law is applicable on bitcoin's blockchain Why would anyone want to force the blockchain expanding at pre-set dates. The concept behind an increasing block size has no basis other than speculating that bitcoin's use will grow (and expecting the new users would want to use in-chain transactions. The vote mechanism of BIP100 is much more rational. It's good that Jeff wants to be open about development so possible weaknesses not thought out in the papers can be addressed while developing.

You mean like BIP 101?  It does exactly that.  And it's already designed, coded, and tested.

That is the main issue with 101
I think what Bobby Lee said sounds reasonable


Unbalance or not, we are finally heading toward consensus as BIP100 has 64% support and steadily increasing
not a single block has been mined under BIP101 in the past 24h

Consensus toward miners but not from payment processors and market markers that strongly support BIP101 for obvious reasons. Both should go in an agreement otherwise it's not a consensus, it's a miners take over.

That's not really how bitcoin works. Consensus works because of economic incentives, and forks happen because of hashing power -- not the opinions of Bitpay, etc. which may change now that new alternatives to BIP 101 are emerging. Who are these market makers that you speak of, anyway?

As such:

http://blog.blockchain.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Industry-Block-Size-letter-All-Signed.pdf

Almost all of the industry that creates the financial infrastructure are/will support BIP101 for the obvious reason that it gives them predictable room for growth. Some people here don't realize how much this aspect is important for the long term prospect of these businesses. IMO they have more weight than miners in this debate because they are the one that gives usefulness to the coin. There is not a lot incentives for miners to mine a coins unappealing that can't be used properly by the industry in general.  It is my belief that they will push aggressively at some point if Core doesn't move quickly. Coinwallet "stress test" is no coincidence and they won't be alone pushing toward that goal. The industry have invested roughly a billion dollar up to date and you can be sure that they won't let their investments being jeopardized with a bad block size growth implementation from a business perspective.  

I and many others disagree with this notion. Retail payment applications are of tertiary concern to me. Sure, I use Bitpay to pay for things from time to time, and I'm glad that Circle exists so that people have another avenue to buy/sell bitcoin. But this isn't really what gives usefulness to bitcoin. The usefulness of bitcoin comes from being a decentralized/trustless, transferable token of value. Miners are integral to maintaining the security of that system. Bitcoin is based on proof-of-work, after all. Let's not get too far removed from what it is by focusing on what a few corporate executives think.

has anybody came with BIP XXX where 1 bitcoin = 1 vote for the blocksize in the same way BIP101 do it with miners?
People using bitcoin are as important as miner. No user ->No value-> No miners -> no bitcoin

Why give this power to the miner is what i do not understand.
Also, why the hardlimit at 32mb ?

Still bip100 is better than doing nothing. You can spend your all life doing nothing. Perfect is the enemy of good.

Because it was always done this way and therefor it is the easiest solution to implement.
I am not sure, how a 1 BTC= 1 vote would work. After all the votes have to be in the blockchain.

It would be nice to have a BIP that takes into account technical growth, but that is also impossible since, this information is also not in the Blockchain(BIP101 and BIP103 are only based on prediction, not on what actually will happen)
Theoretical BIP100 could be used for that, but there is just too much trust, that miners would vote this way, instead of a way, that benefits them the most.

To be clear i am not saying this idea is better or even if it is good just that it looks as arbitrary as to give vote to miners.
Now You can sign a messages on the blockchain with your private key and then multiply that with the amount of satoshi
 it would work a bit the same way as the miner voting system but instead of "1mhZ" 1 vote, you get "1btc" 1 vote.

About technical growth. we can start by considering the technical growth from 2009 until 2015 which is a start. after that only predictions true.

I don't think, you understand how miner voting works. They don't vote with the Hashing power, they vote with the blocks they have found and putting additional information in that blocks.
For a voting system with BTC, people would have to send BTC (making a transaction) and put additional information in there. There is no "signing a message on the blockchain" other than that. The question here is also, what prevents them from just sending the same BTC to sign their votes. You can't tell, if when address A is sending to address B, if address B belongs to the same person, just excluding address B from voting would mean, that whoever makes the first votes in a voting period, would have a advantage.
Unless you can show me a more detailed description of how that is supposed to work, I don't think it is a good idea.

Nobody is talking about forcing the blockchain to expand at pre-set dates. Nobody is talking about forcing the blockchain to expand at all.  The block size increases automatically with demand, as it always has.  The blockchain doesn't automatically fill whatever the current cap is.  The cap has been 1MB for years now, and we don't have 1MB blocks yet.  

Whether we do nothing, or whether we adopt BIP 100, BIP 101, etc, the block size will continue to slowly grow naturally as adoption increases.  With no change to the cap, that growth will be stopped in its tracks in about a year.  The 1 MB cap was added as a temporary solution to the worry of a spam transaction attack, which hasn't yet materialized.  To maintain the 1MB cap and artificially restrict the relaying of valid transactions would be a radical departure from what Bitcoin is.

Semantic quibbling aside, let's address what alani clearly meant:

Why would anyone want to force the blocksize limit expanding at pre-set dates. Now, give a sensible reply to what was intended.

1. To give enough headroom for adoption and rise in transaction volume.

2. To disincentivise spam attacks. (More saturated the block is the more profitable it is for large miners to team up and make spam transactions in order to drive the fees up.)

So what if the 8Mb pre-set limit starts to be taken advantage of? That's why pre-setting a limit so far from the original is considered radical change by many. It has never been tested in anything as large as bitcoin, Gavin even refused to set up testing in the testnet claiming it wouldn't be an appropriate environment for testing. Since you already acknowledge that even with current demand, 1Mb blocks aren't filled, why do we need 8Mb blocks with the first chance.

Answer the whole question, not the part you prefer. Why the pre-set dates and limits? Why can the size limit not decrease when required under this scheme? How can these projections, and the arbitrary stepping that manifests them, possibly hope to conform to reality over the next 18 years?


Rogue developers have a similar incentive to launch their own spam transaction attacks under the same circumstances. Their payoff is development control, and of course, all such people would need to do subsequent to the success of such an attack would be to implement a feature that prevents any future hard forks to wrest control away from them. Such a feature exists in the XT roadmap (checkpointed, aka centralised, chain consensus)

Actually it has been tested before. When 1 MB block size limit came to effect in 2010 the average block size was around 0.0003 MB. So only 0.03% of maximum block size was actually being used by blocks. With rise to 8 MB the same ratio with current usage would be 5% and situation would be relatively equal to mid 2012, when 5% of 1 MB blocks were in use.

Can you give us a good example how 8 MB limit could be taken advantage of?

I don't think there was anyone with the interest to stress test bitcoin's transaction logs back in 2010 among the then tiny userbase. We can't be sure about what could have happened if such a stress test would be performed with a 8Mb limit.

Edit: It's also not just about stress tests. There are more issues that I think increasing the block size blindly based on pre-set dates for doubling can be dangerous. In his 'Scalability Roadmap (https://blog.bitcoinfoundation.org/a-scalability-roadmap/)' Gavin justifies his views by saying that: "But 50% per year growth is really good. According to my rough back-of-the-envelope calculations, my above-average home Internet connection and above-average home computer could easily support 5,000 transactions per second today."

Basing such decisions on Moore's and Nielsen’s law leaves out large parts of the world, which is probably why miners dislike bitcoin XT and vote against BIP101.

Disagree with this, if the limit was 8 MB in June 2015 (when the spam attack happened), then it would have been alot more expensive to produce the same effect. If the attack took place in June anyway, then the motives of the attacker would be more easily discerned; miners couldn't perform the attack profitably without half full blocks to rest an attack on, which they could have given the actual blocksize we had then (and assuming they were responsible, of course).

It's hardly semantic, and I'm not at all sure what he meant. Many of the arguments against raising the cap only make any sense if understood as an argument against raising the block size.

Let's start simple. Can you give a rational argument against immediately raising the block size cap to 8MB?

Do you normally handle disclarity like that? By replying as if you knew exactly what was intended?


Tautology alert.

I answered one interpretation of the question - the literal one.  Like it or not, it is a fact that this distinction is misunderstood by some. I'm happy that you're not one of them, but if you take a moment to review my post history, you'll find more than one instance where my clarification on this issue (block size vs block size cap) has resulted in a 'thank you' from those who had not understood the distinction.


I think you should read my statement again if you believe it to be a tautology.

Shall I take your lack of reply to my question as a "no, I can't give a rational argument against that"?  Or will you give an actual answer?

That's terrifying, your grasp of the facts is poor on the issue we are discussing at present.


I read it several times; it contains two propositional statements that are logically identical, and a conditional statement where you suggest that the two propositions depend on one another? That's the literal definition of a tautology, and no, there is no "actual" answer to such nonsense.

That says about all I need to hear to understand your position. Thanks!

If you wanna play this game I can: it will effectively retire a number of nodes from the network. It is a slippery road opening the door for more unadvised decision encouraged by populist movements. The effects on securty and the network are unknown and have yet to receive any legitimate testing.

There are plenty of arguments really.

You asked two questions, I answered a different question to the answer which you're attributing it.

You people are a fucking disgrace

What are you basing the statement on? We currently have a 1MB cap, yet we do not have 1MB blocks.  Raising the cap has no causative effect on the block size - it will only go up when the volume of transactions increase enough.  Speaking as one full node operator, I can say that the incremental cost is entirely trivial, and my node will remain.

I asked only about a change to 8MB.  Further changes would have to be approved on their own merits.

Actually, it's well tested.  When I first started using Bitcoin, it had no cap (or actually had a 32MB cap due to code limitations).  

Ad hominem so quickly?  You need to pace yourself.

I asked only one question. "Can you give a rational argument against immediately raising the block size cap to 8MB?"

One that you still haven't answered.

You asked 2 questions and pretended I provided the answer to the one that suited you best. Hence your arguments and you are a literal disgrace, and so any perceived ad hominem is addressing the meta-argument accurately. Fuck off.

I don't suppose you can quote this mythical second question, can you?

It's clear that I've lost patience with your dishonesty, so no. Respect my wishes and fuck off.

I thank you for the amusement you've generated for me today, and will happily do so. :)

http://memecrunch.com/meme/4FWJ8/bye-felicia/image.png

Or we could just stop playing games and you could tell us exactly what increase in blocksize you would be comfortable with.  If, as I suspect, the answer is zero, please then admit that your position is untenable.  Because even if you do support the notion of forcing a significant number of transactions off-chain via lightning network or something similar, LN itself still needs a larger blocksize to function.  A larger blocksize is almost unavoidable and none of your arrogant "only I'm smarterer enough to have a valid opinion" troll BS is going to change that.  Introducing LN to the wider Bitcoin ecosystem is also a much larger change than a moderate blocksize increase.  The effects on security and the network with LN are also unknown and is also yet to receive any legitimate testing because it doesn't exist yet.

You can play the "slippery slope" card that it will lead to centralisation, but the rest of us can play the same slippery slope card that a permanent 1MB blocksize will lead to an elitist, niche safe-haven that only benefits early adopters.  One way or another, it's almost inevitable the blocksize is increasing because the pressure for it to happen will never go away unless another solution is found.  A small handful of people who think that Bitcoin is here solely to benefit them and them alone have no way of stopping a global populace looking for an alternative to the corrupt banking system.  The numbers are simply against you.  You can either contribute to the blocksize increase in a constructive fashion, or just keep acting like a belligerent troll (but we've already got iCEBREAKER for that, so it seems a tad redundant).

Most of us would now like to have a sensible discussion on where to strike the balance between decentralisation and capacity because we recognise that both are important.  If you want to keep having the same tired old conversation about how decentralisation is the only thing that's important (because it provides tremendous benefit to you) and capacity is somehow irrelevant (because it doesn't benefit you), go talk to some people who actually want to listen to it.  
 

There's no indicator that an 8Mb limit could be of use at the moment. One big argument for raising the limit was that more transactions per second could start being handled. Which in theory could become possible under a larger block size limit but if you think about it, even right now bitcoin isn't making full use of the 1Mb limit. Increasing the block size limit to a small number at first could help study the plausible effects such a change could have with minimum risk. If you look at it carefully, the Chinese pools have been Vetoing Mike hearn's proposals for months now. BIP101 came out with 8Mb blocks after pools accounting for ~ 60% of the hashrate at the time united against the then 20Mb blocks (http://www.8btc.com/blocksize-increase-2) proposal. Now, as BIP100 started becoming more popular, more miners are showing support towards it since it's considered a less radical and more modest proposal by far. Prior to showing support for BIP100, most of those pools were showing support for 8Mb blocks, but not BIP101. It now seems like instantly increasing the block size limit to 8Mb doesn't look as attractive to miners.

In short, an 8Mb block limit could:

• Have devastating effects on the fee market

Since there's more space in each block, this space is now less valuable, fees might not be zero, but they'll be lead down to the minimum and competitiveness for fast transactions will be dead.

• Bring nodes offline and make pools/miners less reliable

The change would increase bandwidth consumption as well as HD space required to run a full node. There are many nodes that run on non-optimized hosts, if they suddenly start sucking up more of the bandwidth and HD space it's safe to assume that many will go offline. Also, pools running on weak networks would be more prone to orphaned blocks because of the blocks being harder to propagate.

I've seen people arguing that in case the block limit was raised, it wouldn't be put to use immediately as well that it would handle transaction floods better. But what if it destroys the fee market on the moment it's implemented? Sending out a meaningless transaction would now be cheaper. Plus, if nodes and miners were available exclusively to those with unlimited hardware and bandwidth, centralisation is unavoidable.

Mining basically becomes less and less economically viable over time under BIP101. Mining would need subsidising somehow, and so only those that can afford to do that will mine (i.e. losing money). The most concerning outcome would be large miners staying in the industry only to maintain control of the hashrate.

That doesn't sound half wrong to me. That's the Silicon Valley motto no? "Lose money, gain users!"  ;)

I find it incredibly unconvincing that Google, for instance, have ever turned a profit. They've amassed alot of useful information though.

I foresee a similar future for Gavincoin service providers!

I understand how miner vote. Minus the random part of block finding isn't that the same as 1MHZ 1vote?
The more hashing power, the more block you find ...

So to come back to my exemple of a different system but as arbitrary
Vote take place on DAY 1.
All the coin that didn't move before DAY 1 can vote ( ie you can't send a coin from different address to vote multiples times
Address A sign a particular message about the blocksize  "i vote for blocksize 2MB" (at the cost of a transaction fee+1satoshi)
Address B that receive btc on day 1 ( possibly from a previous vote) can't vote.

Then to know what the bitcoins holders want you simply sum up all the satoshi on address A at the voting time (at the begining of DAY1) and of all the other address that vote for 2MB...

This will probably never be accepted but is it so much different of BIP 100 system?
Instead of giving power to one, you give it to another...

Maybe we come up with a BIP 102 and compromise by including pieces from both?

I don't know how it would change the fee market.. There hasn't been any scarcity in blocks before so fees would probably stay quite similar to what they are today. If adoption continues to increase, the total of collected fees will be higher as there would be more transactions per block.


One possibility is that increase in adoption and advancement of technology will balance that or even make number of nodes increase. We can't know for sure.

What I know is that letting blocks to saturate will make the fees rise rise and will make bitcoin less inclusive. It will be less appealing/useless for many markets/use cases thus stiffle the growth. Everyday users will find it less useful and investors don't want to invest in niche product with no growth potential.

If you're not so sure about that, then lets try to keep 1 MB limit for few years just to see what happens. It would be an interesting experiment and surely would not kill bitcoin...just push it back few years at worst.

Wrong. Some scarcity in blocks, and some disparity in the fees paid is essential to maintain a healthy economic relationship between the miners and the users. More tx volume just recreates today's dynamics on a larger scale. As the block reward subsidy diminishes, the extent to which that subsidy was distorting the fee market will become increasingly more apparent. When the block reward approaches zero, having a functional fee market in place is the only way of incentivising miners to mine at all.

Treating fees as "one-fee-fits-all" doesn't take account of the economic reality. Some transactions must confirm ASAP, for a wide variety of reasons. Others can be afforded hours, days or perhaps even longer than that.


Again, you're speaking as if every fee will be pushed up to the same level; there is, and always will be, a range of fees that can be usefully applied in order to target the confirmation time the user needs for a given transaction. A functional fee market will make instant confirms more expensive; they should be, because instant confirms are in high demand.

Bitcoin Core wallet has only recently introduced the "smart fee" feature that helps the user choose the right fee for the confirmation time they want (there is an API for other software to use the smart fee feature too). A software feature that was written by the designer of BIP101, no less.

drop btc price to 50$ for 3 months and you will see why miners are important!

you cant have a good house without a strong foundation!

Funnily enough, that's why no one is saying let's get rid of the cap entirely.  No one's saying let's have 10GB blocks tomorrow.  Everyone who isn't a perma-1MBer knows that the limit needs to be raised, but everyone seems to have a different idea on how much of an increase is safe.  I honestly don't see 8MB as a threat to decentralisation.  I don't see how anyone could.  I'm not entirely convinced about the doubling part being needed yet, but we don't necessarily have to allow the doubling to happen.  It can be prevented with a soft fork if it isn't needed.  All things considered, BIP101 isn't the catastrophe some make it out to be.  It certainly doesn't guarantee a future of 8GB blocks and half a dozen nodes running the whole network, no one in their right mind would allow it to come to that.  But if the miners aren't showing much support for BIP101, I'll go along with that.  Their preference seems to be BIP100 at the moment, but there are justified concerns that they could choose to enforce a 1MB limit forever if that's what they deemed most profitable for them.  What would be beneficial to the network as a whole isn't taken into consideration at all and it involves placing trust in an entity to set a variable which dictates how the network is run.  I would feel much more comfortable if this was done algorithmically, like just about everything else in Bitcoin.

More than ever, I'm convinced that the answer lies somewhere between BIP100 and upal's BIP1xx (but more towards the latter).  A balance between the two is absolutely 100% reasonable and the only people who would still take issue with it would be the ones who think Bitcoin's sole purpose is to benefit a small minority of ultralibertarian crackpots.

8Mb block limit in its own isn't a huge thread towards decentralisation or bitcoin. I'm hesitant when it comes to increasing the limit eightfold in an instance though, I also don't like BIB101's approach about the cap doubling.

Some do advocate for an infinite limit, but they're in the same category as the 1MB'ers IMO (i.e. not credible insignificant minority). 8MB/BIP101 won't cause heinous problems tomorrow, but it's the progression of that schedule that will really cause issues (as you concede).

Looking in the Bitcoin github, there's an effort under way to develop a specific test harness for the testnet network, in order to simulate these various schemes and schedules on an actual network. It will be interesting to see the results once that effort is ready to conduct the tests.


That's similar to my position also. I support an algorithmically determined blocksize limit, but sadly we don't have any complete proposals yet. Greg Maxwell and Mark Friedenbach have their FlexCap scheme floated, upal's Dynamic Resizing concept is out there, and I think Meni Rosenfelds's idea has been a little neglected (he tabled it early on in the debate, so it's understandable).

The problem is that the code for these proposals doesn't exist yet. But it will emerge, the FlexCap idea will almost certainly receive a coded implementation.



That sounds like a sensible position (although I don't understand the political allusion, libertarianism doesn't contain any economic or computer science theory, those being the disciplines that pertian to the blocksize debate).

Based on what they've been saying, it seems to be the root source of their stance.  They have concerns about government control over money and see Bitcoin as a useful tool in counteracting it.  I can empathise with that.  I certainly can't argue they're wrong to think in that way.  Bitcoin is incredibly useful in that regard.  But where I draw the line is when they decide to get greedy and try to steer us down a path where this benefit would be limited to the early adopters and everyone else should be forced out.  Some are clearly more honest than others when this intent is raised and questioned, but it seems to be the prevailing cause of contention.  Half the drama we've seen in the forum lately would never have occurred if a small but noisy minority weren't pushing for that goal by any means necessary.

Likewise. I'm not a self-identifying libertarian, but like you, I respect the aspects of that ideology that make sense to me. Some libertarians fetishise the doctrine, their arguments about abortion and punishing crime are amongst them IMO.


I've heard people levelling that accusation, but I have yet to see anyone explicitly advocating for making Bitcoin any kind of exclusive club, and it feels like I've seen at read it all (although that's just a feeling, probably not the case). Demonstrate that such a contingent exists, and I would take that line of argument more seriously.

You are describing a theoretical construct, while uxgpf describes (current) reality. So, it's pretty arrogant to tell him, that he is wrong.
You state a theory as a fact, so you don't have to describe what your theory is based on. It at least doesn't seem to be based on current events.

Unfortunately, you're wrong too. uxgpf is describing future projections also. All his statements are predicated with logical conjunctives like "if", "will be" and "would be". And he doesn't state what his projections are based on either (I would say that for us both we are using a combination of economic and systems theory)

It's pretty obvious that his projections are based on actual observations while yours are based on nothing tangible but doubtful suppositions.

His prediction is based on the past and present. I know, that this is not an optimum, but it is still better, than what you have presented so far.
I just don't get, why anybody would think that fees would go down, when blocksize increase(besides "supply and demand" which is an oversimplification of how economies work)

Well, you'll find that not everyone has the patience to wait for it to click for you, but suffice it to say: increasing the block size too much will cause fees to collapse. The author of the BIP I am opposing will tell you the same thing.

In addition, simply saying something doesn't make it true, no matter how many times you repeat it. My analysis is also based on observations made both in the past and the present; I haven't once claimed to observe events in the future (or implied it). It'd be an impressive feat if it was possible though lol

You still haven't answered me why. All you do is dodging my question and writing comments without any content.

So, this quote also applies to you:

It's explained perfectly adequately a short distance back in this thread. I'm not going to do it again just so you can feel like people value your audience.

So, I read all your posts in this thread again and you didn't give anything besides a pretty vague theoretical construct, that isn't based on anything(the very point where I entered the discussion).
So, I accept, that you are like many other people in here are just not willing to give answer, more likely use ad hominem or trying to look smart by starting some stupid meta discussion without link to the actual topic  and that further discussion is pretty much pointless.

If you lose the miners your pretty coins go by bye.

Miners will go where the money is. In other words, which coin market makers will choose.

ahhh so who's the market makers again? ;D WE ARE :D

so dont mind this ph0rk, it wont happen. and if big centralized miners tries.. they'll loose huge money. ;D

So your meta-meta argument, littered with inaccuracies and ad hominems, demonstrates you inhabiting the high ground?  ;)

Like I said: Andresen accepts that view. He designed BIP101. You should complain to him, ruining everyone's perception of BIP101, how could he?  :D

The delusion here is strong  ::)

Who is "we"? This tinny community? Big pockets doesn't give a damn about you and I opinion. Bitcoin has gone beyond bitcointalk. Reality check.

And you continue to post here for what reason? You're admitting you're not a part of this community as well as your contempt for it, please leave.

If I leave, will it adds up to your feeling of "control?". Like it or not bitcoin is at the edge of a new power structure driven by market forces leaving this community behind, just as intended by Satoshi. Those with big pockets, which their job is to move capitals to make things happen, will get want they want and right now what they want is bigger blocks (Also as intended from the start) because big blocks = big bucks. It won't change any single thing about the principles which bitcoin is being built on nor its decentralization. No matter the outcome, bitcoin will fork and even if you dislike the fork, even if you call it gavincoin or "whatever implementation altcoin" the people on the street will call it bitcoin because it will be packaged and marketeer as such. Why I'm still here even if I can't control anything? Simply because as an observer I still enjoying talking about it and watching it unfold.  :)

Seek help. I am feeling increasingly sorry for you people, doing this must be no fun at all. How you got roped in, I do not know, but you all have my sympathies.

Honestly I'm not sure how you plan on changing this unless you run a large pool. The miners decide what chain they use and ultimately how that stuff works.

Miners indeed decide what chain they use but they will choose the most profitable one and they are not those who gives value to the chain. How big pockets will drive this is yet to be seen.

Simple, concise but no point like most of the time.

Ditto....my eyes are bleeding from reading the drivel in this thread. What was that you said about engaging people who are happy to present willfully dishonest arguments? I think I've lost the energy to fight the good fight....

If you ever feel like truly opening up about why you're here, I for one will help you. No one deserves your present situation, I'm sure there could be an interesting story behind it. PM me if you ever have a change of heart.

I know, you're right. I just couldn't stand by and watch the people of this forum inflicted with blanket condemnation from these characters as a part of their arguments.

I've been very pleased to see you marky, as well as others, taking the shills on, you've done a better job than I could have wished for. I'm tired of this too, but I think we've won an important victory. XT and BIP100 have been discredited, no-one except the corporations are interested in either, and they have a combined hashrate of zero. Even despite the fact we could have been arguing with troll-bots the whole time  :D (no wonder they're more relentless than the Seventh Day Adventists  ;D)

Why I am here is not really an interesting story. All I do care is that bitcoin is sound money not based on debts and that it gives the choice of full financial control over the individuals. Anything else for me is futile. It's just too bad you don't seem to understand how market and businesses work and how bitcoin fits in all this. I don't know why I should need help as I am being just an observer at this point. You are the one that feel to fight something (XT is evil!) which puts you in a non impartial view, I am not.  

And probably only a meager amount of BTC.

Because that's what the lunatic in this thread doesn't seem to realize. Fiat interests have no control over the Bitcoin world. That's the whole point of the thing. It doesn't matter if these corporations have billions of dollars behind them unless they become investors in Bitcoin and have a BTC balance to back up their claims.

Exact. When I'm talking about the industry I'm talking about the bitcoin industry, those who have put money building infrastructures on top of bitcoin. Those who have big stack in that matter. Not those who are in control of fiat that have indeed no influence of what can happen in the bitcoin world.  

 ???

You are one dense person  :D

The "bitcoin industry" and their "infrastructure" other than the miners have little influence over these decisions. Now the exchanges might have some pull but wallet services or payment processor opinions really have no "weight" unless they have Bitcoin themselves to support it.

You don't get special status for being "in the industry". The "big pockets" you refer to are nothing but fiat interests with absolutely abysmal leverage over what will happen in the Bitcoin economy. It should be evident by now that these companies "reflections" on the issue have not moved the economic consensus balance by an inch. They got behind an half-baked solution that grows irrelevant by the day. Stop being obtuse and accept the situation for what it is:

You and your handlers have lost and we, the Bitcoiners, were not fooled.

Lol dumbass, do you know how to value a fcking business? Exchanges and wallet services dont hold btc? And you got a nerve to tell someone densed?

Idiot. Your argument is similar to saying netflix, facebook amazon have little influence compared to ISP.


Who the fck are you? Calling yourself  "bitcoiner".

To all the fcking noobs who think miners have any influence to bitcoin value, where were you when btc crashed to below $2?



Yeah i thought so.

You really don't seem to get what kind of financial infrastructures is needed for bitcoin to become a functioning currency. These infrastructures are what will/are giving bitcoin the most value because it makes it useful for individuals and businesses to use it. Just think of exchanges which are the very low level, basic ones. Without them bitcoin would go nowhere. I invite you to learn more about how finance works. There is no war here, only a system that needs to be built to accommodate all participants for bitcoin to achieve its full blown potential. It's not that hard to understand that these businesses now need a clear path of how bitcoin will scale in the future and Core is failing to delivers that. If Core continues to fail to deliver in a timely manner, someone else will. Will it be XT is yet to be seen.

Value a business  ???

You don't actually think wallet services and exchanges are valued by their Bitcoin holdings  :D :D :D

No thats not what i meant retard.

And holding an amount of any coin is more valuable than holding mining hardwares that can only mine such coin.

But idiots like you cant see further than your nose.

Look I'm not gonna argue the importance of exchanges but if you think blockchain.info, bitnet, bitgo, bitpay are relevant in this discussion you are fooling yourself. They operate in a marginal sector of the Bitcoin economy and they can fancy themselves "leaders" all they want their status amongst the reddit crowd does not impress anyone.

All of these are start-up companies riding VC money and most likely bleeding it as we speak. Some are addressing markets that have shown little demand so far from their service. Let's face it the retail venture of Bitcoin has been a spectacular failure so far. Remember when everyone was tripping because Microsoft started accepting Bitcoin? How far has that brought us?

What can you tell us about the Bitcoin holdings of these companies?

I don't see how any early stage start ups could afford "holding" Bitcoin as an investment other than to provide reserve for their business and their operations. Don't confuse their clients holdings for theirs. These companies are all currently bleeding VC money and it makes no sense for them to hold such a volatile and currently under performing asset.

These businesses are actually building products. They are basically in beta and won't mass marketeer their products to attract new participants until they are finished and are absolutely sure the system they rely on will scale witch is not actually. Gavin released XT after making sure it will get supported by this industry by talking to each one of them (Unlike Core devs in their Ivory tower). https://youtu.be/B8l11q9hsJM?t=1h16s

Convinced/ask the industry first and miners will follow. That's the only logical way to do it properly.

I think he probably should've thought about convincing miners too  :D

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

You're not one of those people who think "marketing" is gonna sell people unto Bitcoin are ya ?  :-\

btw why do you using "ivory tower" in the same posts where you reference the "industry" laying down their decision on the debate by way of a two paragraph letter  ??? have they bothered consulting their users? do you realise your hypocrisy here or are you simply going to look the other way because it doesn't fit your argument?

You should watch the whole Gavin interview, it will answer a lot of your questions.

I did. It was terribly boring and absent of any insight to be quite honest.

All I've learned pretty much confirmed what I thought: XT release was carefully orchestrated using propaganda tactics and industry lobbying absent of any balance and transparency. Fortunately it is very much a failure.

It didn't even started yet so calling it a failure is absurd. It takes time to roll out things like that. Also asking the industry's opinion is not lobbying. I'm not even sure you know what it means.

It is absolutely right to call it a failure. Even the very misguiding "nodes races" has gotten to a halt and the (fake) nodes turned on to show support for XT are already starting to go offline. Several miners have publicly opposed it. The consensus has clearly shown to be against the proposal.

Patience my friend, patience. Big mining pools are a few phone calls away from supporting XT or at least BIP101 if there is no other implementation being proposed soon.

 :D :D

The biggest pool & the biggest private miner are openly against BIP101/XT for reasons that won't change with time.

I'm sorry but you need to find another dream. This one is dead.

I am not dreaming, I couldn't care less BUT:

1. Don't underestimate the big pockets and their phones.
2. Miners are greedy by nature.

Nothing is played yet until at least 6 months. A lot of things can happen before that and by then we'll get a clearer picture but this is the situation we are in right now.

What they're gonna call every node owner and ask them to switch  :D

You really expect chinese businessmen to be lead by the nose by "big pockets". You don't think these guys are filthy rich on their own?

Maybe but maybe not. Big mining pools are not that much profitable and most of them aren't even backed by VC's. These people will talk with to each others in some point in time, there is absolutely not doubts about that. It's all a mater of who will have the greatest influence over who and how. Unfortunately we will never know these kind of details but we will know the outcome.

Understand this, this is not a game played on a bitcointalk forum. Not anymore.

That doesn't mean you can sit there and pretend not to observe and acknowledge the events unfolding: an absolute failure for the Bitcoin XT release. You can't wave you hand at the total lack of momentum and support. If you are hoping people will just get tired of waiting and "make the switch" you are bound to be disappointed. It is probably a matter of a couple weeks until other proposals are formalized in the form of different BIPs and then any remaining attention toward BIP101/XT as the "only existing alternative" will disintegrate and make them history.

This is not a game. This is consensus. I know you wish you could cheat it somehow with politics, money and votes but you can't.

Any businessmen would follow the money, thats the whole point of being in business, profit. But no an armchair expert like you know it all right?

 If you think miners can mine whatever the fck they want and make money, tell them to mine another sha256 coin, boom that coin will be $200/ coin because thats the mining cost right? They will all be billionaires.... Go ahead tell them dumb shit. Because you claim the infrastructure is mainly built by miners....right?

Where were dumb asses like you when bitcoin was below $2?

That's a possibility indeed. But realize this, XT doesn't need momentum to be implemented. Like any other possible implementation, it only needs agreement between the industry and mining pools. If when that happen, it will be it.

FTFY. You can't seriously believe that XT will gain traction (as planned) after the obvious signs of strong support towards BIP100 and 8MB blocks. From what I've seen, there is minimum support from both the industry and mining pools (almost none). I have seen some support for BIP101 but that is not equal to supporting XT.

I definitely agree with this part. BIP100 just needs more work, and BIP1xx should be considered as well. A combination of those two would provide something that is ultimately better than both solution.

Who supports bip100 other than miners?

And that is not a surprise as everyone can see why.

Stop making bullshit claim and i will invite you over for a cup of tea.... We can talk about everything cryptocurrency ...promise ;)

This is not what I meant, maybe I have badly express myself. What I actually meant is no matter the agreement between the industry and miners, that agreement will be it (XT or not). You and I will have little to no say about it.

Have you take the time to consider that there might just be no solution to be found for a non problem?! ::)