Bitcoin Forum

Satoshi Nakamoto,

Please come out of hiding and resolve this debate.

1MB Blockstream vs 8MB Gavin Blocks?

I really love Bitcoin and don't want to see it go down in flames.

Thanks,
Your friend and admirer.

As someone else has already pointed out, if a single person such as Satoshi is needed to resolve this issue or any issue, then Bitcoin is a failure.

Perhaps we're doomed to be taken advantage of for the rest of eternity by centralized financial institutions. At least they can handle transactions. :P

In addition, blockstream's only interest in small blocks is so they can implement lightning network as one of the first and most trusted hubs. Without small blocks, there is no need for lightning network.

In the end, though, we need a decentralized way to deal with issues regarding a decentralized network.

Yea right. People won't change sides just because Satoshi voices his opinion. People will say "oh well looks like Gavin already got to satoshi and that's why he supports XT", or "Satoshi wants to keep everything under his control and that's why he supports core".

Also as I have mentioned before I don't think Satoshi will ever get involved in this debate or any others.
This is an experiment to him and he needs to see absolute proof that a decentralized system like this can work out issues.
If he were to get involved it would show that bitcoin is not ready for decentralization and requires a central figure to make decisions.

In my personal opinion, Satoshi is almost certainly already dead.

However, he fortunately already expressed an opinion about increasing the blocksize before he disappeared:


Sounds like he was in favor of increasing the block size when it is needed.  The only question is:

"Is it needed yet?"

That's a very bold assumption here. Not that certainly at all.

Sorry.  Fixed that.

I am nominated by self himself Satoshi Nakamoto to have the right to tell that both of groups have their right to think whatever they want. Everyone will have its road and the best and the stronger variant will win. I talked and I decided that and in this way should and will be. Peace brothers !!!  :D

Thanks. I didn't know that Satoshi had already spoken. What's the debate then?! He CREATED bitcoin. Let's honor his wishes. He never spent any of his bitcoins (nor his heirs if he is dead), so we know that he is not corrupted but makes decisions based only on what is really good for Bitcoin!

We should increase the block size, but not the presently proposed version as a coder has found evidence that the code includes measures to de-anonymise people's identity when using bitcoin. They claim that it is only used for dealing with ddos attacks but bitcoin is resistant to ddos due to it's decentralized nature (miner facilities in China, Washington State, Hong Kong, and Iceland).

If Satoshi is dead, he must have been Hal Finney.  ::) ....If he or she or they are still alive... it would not help to intervene here... There will to my knowledge not be a 100%

trusted way to communicate to everyone other than to send a transaction with a message from Satoshi's Bitcoin address. The other accounts would most probably be hacked

already. What can be said about this, that can change people's minds?.... " Developers must stop making changes to the Bitcoin protocol to benefit their own projects and

rather make changes when it is necessary. Stop stuffing your own pockets and your ego's and put the protocol first. " 

well it does not look like the consensus mechanic is working either, seeing how many other solution have pop out and now we have a complete chaos

satoshi should have left the limit to 32 like it was at the beginning, right now we would face another problem like ddos, which i'm sure would be much easy to handle, by a consensus point of view

Yeah, I heard he got hit by a bus like three years ago. People be trippin, though.


Indeed. I've seen a few quotes from Satoshi regarding increasing the block size, and his general opinion seemed to be, "if/when it's needed." I'd say that coding an 8000x increase into the protocol that is in no way connected to actual capacity needs doesn't really line up with that.

Why do you say that?

Bitcoin is still working just fine.

If someone wants to implement a variation on the protocol, they can go ahead and do that.  If they get enough people that join their protocol variation, then they will have a consensus among their participants.

Well, keep in mind that miners won't be required to create larger blocks, they'll just have the opportunity to do so if they want to.

If I remember correctly, Satoshi added the 1 MB limit in 2010 to prevent some sort of DDOS attack?  If so, then there are a few important questions:

1) Is that DDOS attack still a viable threat if the maximum blocksize limit is removed?

2) If it is still a viable threat, then is it possible to prevent the attack with some method other than a hard block size limit?

3) If it is not possible to prevent the attack with some other method, then is it possible to determine the best limit today, in the near future, and in the long term, without needing to have this debate repeatedly for the rest of bitcoin's existence?

That is your assumption. What if satoshi suddenly appears and decides to go along with Gavin's idea and support the larger block size option? If that's the decision by him, would everyone that generally opposes to the idea, agree to it? If we need a person to decide for us, what is the point of having community power?

Indeed, but if the limit is raised, we inevitably have to prepare for the case that the space will be used, whether or not that growth in transaction volume is tied to organic adoption, and whether or not we understand today the incentives that may exist for spamming the blockchain tomorrow. So whether or not we believe the limit will be relevant doesn't matter; if the possibility is there, then we need to consider the implications for network security.



I don't know the mechanics that well. But if, in theory, blocks were large enough to cause significant delays in block propagation times, orphaned blocks become a significant concern.... for one thing, anyway.

Personally, I think it's naive to think that we can determine the best limit today, for the rest of eternity. I don't think we can begin to understand the problems that may come with a scaling of the magnitude suggested by BIP 101. I think scaling should be undertaken on a need basis with technical rigor (neither of which have been put forth in BIP 101 IMO).

I also don't think people should be so afraid of the idea that the block size limit won't permanently be decided by the next fork. It isn't going to be the last fork that bitcoin sees. It simply can't be, if we approach the idea of scaling responsibly, and with the utmost regard for network security and consensus.

so 1 MB blockstream would be increase to 8MB by Gavin Anderson in 2016 right?
anyway, could anyone tell me the advantage and disadvantage by 8MB Gavin Blocks ?
i just curious about it, i just want to know from positive side and negative side, thanks

Dunno why but this comes to my mind:

http://www.2nurture.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Child-Praying1.jpg

Of course, that same logic cuts both ways.

If we assume that this "isn't going to be the last fork that bitcoin sees" and we aren't "so afraid of the idea that the block size limit won't permanently be decided by the next fork", then there's no reason not to go ahead with the "8000x increase into the protocol" over the next 20 years, since we can always create a soft fork in the future to slow or stop the growth if/when needed.

I'm not sure that it's logical to proceed with a technically unsound fork based on the idea that we can fork again when things go wrong. Ideally, forks will not be the result of crisis (where a lot of real money is at stake), but of deliberation and consensus. I didn't mean to imply that a fork should be taken lightly at all. I don't think hard forks should be used as a test bed for ideas -- especially ideas as unscientific as using Moore's Law as the basis for increasing block size limit.

It's not as simple as tick-tock-tick-tock... just ask Intel. ;)

I personally believe Satoshi is among us and waiting for the right time to fund a country into an empire.  Frankly, I don't see any other reason for doing it.

No fucking way he "lost" his private keys either.   He very well could have kicked the bucket. RIP Hal

This 1mb vs 8mb isn't a big enough deal for him to come out of the wood work even if BTC goes to $15 a coin.

Satoshi as already spoken, it is in the first pages of his whitepaper. Just read the introduction and tell me if you think satoshi was thinking of a network of "high value transaction"or a network of small casual transactions as well as big ones.
Here is the link for you.
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Hint : The first 4 words says it all "Commerce on the Internet [...]"

The thing is, in the urge of making quick buck some people with different views got on board of the train, we didn't check there tickets and now the train has been hijacked...

As if he will come out :)

The moment Satoshi would come back and done this, Bitcoin would be doomed for the future in my opinion.

Think about it a bit clearer. Bitcoin has been designed to be decentralized, to not have a central authority or a central person to depend upon. If Satoshi was to come back and help us clear this debate, he would have destroyed right away the above premises.

He would certainly help Bitcoin short-term, but long term he would not do a favour to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Satoshi knows this very well and that's why he will remain silent.

You can ask him here:

https://twitter.com/NickSzabo4 (https://twitter.com/NickSzabo4)

because apparently it seems that miners can dictate their decision, and in the end besides merchants common people can not really vote, or their votes will be negligeable

for example bip100, it appear to be not the best solution and can be abused by miners, yet it looks like it's winning the competition

what i mean is that what the consensus will choose, it will not be necessarily the correct solution...

its funny how people believe that there might even be a Satoshi out there, maybe it is a group of people who were dedicated to create a better technology, their goals could vary but their motivation was similar. And even if Satoshi exists, it is uncertain for him to come out now. He could be questioned about what his intentions are, if he wants to destroy banks and rule the drug world and make drug trafficking easy and all that shit. Nah, not worth it.

I think so, according to the below graph that I got from this (http://gavinandresen.ninja/the-myth-of-not-full-blocks) blog post (by Gavin Anderson), (as of May 2015) the mempool would often not be cleared when new blocks were found/propagated. Even though this is a small dataset, I would conclude this to mean that often times there are (unpredictable) backlogs that will deter people from using Bitcoin.
http://img.svbtle.com/sjpq0ni5j6a2aq.png
The sharp dips are when new blocks have been found

To be fair, they would need to validate larger blocks if another miner were to create a larger block (which does take resources)
I believe that transaction volume was very low when the 1 MB limit was implemented in 2010, and even less economic related transactions (according to the Bitcoin Wiki (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Category:History#2010), MtGox was only created in June 2010, and the first 10k BTC pizza was purchased in May 2010). So I think the greater threat was that nodes would get overwhelmed by a DDoS attack, verses that users would have difficulty getting their transactions confirmed.

I believe that the majority of nodes would be able to support the validation and rebroadcasting (and storage) of larger blocks, as well as the larger expected mempool size associated with larger blocks.

If the maximum block size is too low (as I believe it is now), then it would be very easy and cheap for an adversary to prevent legitimate economic transactions from completing (confirming), which would cripple the bitcoin economy, and as evidenced in the most recent stress tests. I also know that a too small of a maximum block size will allow the mempool to get overwhelmingly large and would cause many nodes to crash (my node had crashed several times, sometimes multiple times per day at the tail end of the most recent stress tests). 
I don't think so. It is too difficult to predict that far into the future as even a small error in an estimate verses actual growth would cause a very large difference when compounded over time. It is however much easier to lower the maximum block size limit then it is to raise it (a soft fork could be used to lower it which is much easier to implement). So I believe that it would be best to be somewhat aggressive in raising the max block size limit as long as we are confident that the network could handle the larger blocks in the near term.

His quote about blocksize is exactly what core devs should be doing right now. Most of the XT discussion would be obsolete, when intelligent blocksize raising would come into effect. There are enough parameters that could be used to automate the process. Give the people enough time to adapt to the hard fork and anything should be running smoothly.

BTW, I agree, that it pretty much looks like SN is dead. I would even say, his death must have hit him by surprise. He had no time to move his coins.

Ya he just up and died when Gavin went to talk to the CIA.

I imagine that's what happened too  ::)

(sarcasm)

Satoshi's views shouldn't be the deciding factor. But ...

I suspect the recent email really was from Satoshi.

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-August/010238.html (http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-August/010238.html)


Doubters said it was from a "hacked" email address, but it was the gmx email that was hacked, not the vistomail email. And the vistomail email address does date back to the beginning of bitcoin.

Doubters said the "real" Satoshi would've signed the message. But Satoshi never signed his messages. And, in any case, signing it would've undermined his message that even he should not be considered a charismatic leader that can make modifications to the consensus rules without near unanimous agreement.

What Satoshi is saying in the given example is, if number of blocks is greater than 115000, then maximum block size limit should be increased. He is not telling what the maximum block size limit should be.

True, we should be able to work this out on our own through consensus, but the bitcoin network isn't made of individual people all running their own node any more. It's getting more centralized than it should. People don't know as much ad they should.

8 mb is also quite an arbitrary number itself. The biggest message here is that we should not be afraid of a bigger max block size when needed. How high it should go is just a tiny detail.

Just don't use a given cryptocoin after a hard fork you don't like. Miners won't mine and merchants won't accept a currency that has zero users. The users have all the power, but no "votes"

Satoshi was describing a process that is very similar to how BIP 101 would work. At block x₁, the max block size will increase to n, then at block x₂, the max block size will increase to 2n, and so on....

He may have not specifically said that the max block size should increase at that level of an exponential rate, however transaction volume is generally expected to grow at exponential rates, and economic growth certainly grows at exponential rates

You also need to think about this: If this was really an email from Satoshi and if he has seen how the community has rejected this email to be real since he didn't sign a message, don't you think that he would have sent another email with a signed message.

If he cared enough to send a first email, why wouldn't he care again and send another email just with a signed message this time.

why you make this bored and idiot topic?
one man can't solve it! if he can all system is broken is not what we think it is or can be.
He can help to spread an idea but both idea have lack and strenght....
Stop to say him his died!

Did you have see him alive :D ?

I don't think that anybody wants him to solve it. They would just like to hear his valued opinion.

It's hard for me to "think like Satoshi" -- but I doubt he's bothered that people doubted the email was from him. He's more likely to be bothered that the message didn't make a difference. Read this sentence again:


If I were Satoshi and saw the very real possibility that Bitcoin was to be a failed project, then I'd give some kind of warning (like the email above) and then I'd start quietly selling the bitcoins least associated with my identity.

Wasn't there an email sent by an email address previously used by satoshi? Theymos didn't specifically say that it was fake, so I think that we can't be 100% if this was indeed satoshi but it could actually be him. Quote from theymos form a reddit post  (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3h9cq4/its_time_for_a_break_about_the_recent_mess/)he made:

Also, someone who could be Satoshi posted here. This email address was actually used by Satoshi before he left, and the email apparently did come from that email address legitimately (not a spoof). Whether he's actually Satoshi or not, I agree with what he's saying.

I agree with that quote, whether its real or not. If those two people can change what bitcoin is against the majority will of users, them people aren't doing it right.

Yes. I linked to it and reposted it in this thread.  :)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1166153.msg12283811#msg12283811 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1166153.msg12283811#msg12283811)

Look, I can't say that you are wrong or right a 100%. Same goes for my opinion. We just don't know for sure, both of us. I still hope a bit more that you are wrong, since I really wouldn't want to see Satoshi start selling his coins!  ;)

It's unbelievable that there are so many people will lose their mind when their leader disappears

Guys Satoshi is already on Mars building a pyramid

To be fair he was never really here to begin with...he showed up, dropped off bitcoin then left. We've been without him for most of the time bitcoin has been alive.

I agree. This should be removed.

The point is NOT how Satoshi thought the raising process could be achieved, but that he is pro blocksize raising when needed. He already made his point to the current discussion years ago, so there is no need for him to come back and repeat it.

As I already said, there are more than enough parameters to automate the process. Number of blocks is surely the simplest, but it doesn't refer to any needs of the network in the future. For example, size of the blocks itself over a certain amount of time blocks might be a more accurate parameter.

Satoshi was Hal Finney implementing Szabo's idea :D


Correction: It was the gmx email that was publicly "hacked". You think the people currently DoSing XT nodes are incapable of changing the "from" address on some minor league email service?

Conclusion: That email should only be considered with respect to the content, which is not at all unique and contains precisely zero technical arguments. It basically just claims that if a majority hashpower decides to do what a majority hashpower has always done, i.e. enforce the will of the majority, then Bitcoin is a failed project. If that really was Satoshi, then Satoshi has stated that Bitcoin has failed. Chew on that. (And maybe find a different project, if you can't handle a "failed" but still useful Bitcoin.)

I'm not sure how this is a "correction," since you seem to be agreeing that the gmx email is the one that we know was hacked. As far as faking an email from vistomail, it's not just a matter of changing the "From." According to what I read, the headers are correct and (apparently) have been proven to be from the vistomail mail servers. If it's fake (and it may well be), the most likely way it was faked is that Satoshi let his vistomail address expire and then someone else was able to make a "satoshi" account.


Mining has never been about enforcing the will of the majority. Of course, if 51% of the miners cooperated they could do a few bad things (take 100% of the block rewards, roll back blocks, exclude transactions, etc.). This is called a "51% attack" and has generally been considered a bad thing. In fact, some wise member has a sig here: "Democracy: the original 51% attack." It's never been the case that 51% of miners could change the protocol.

It's honestly scary to me how many people into Bitcoin think it's some kind of democracy. If it had ever seemed so to me, I'd never have been interested.


I have a lot of respect for Satoshi. If he considers Bitcoin has failed, I hope he maximizes his profit on the way out (and he deserves as much as he can get) and I hope he moves on to other projects.

This is why Satoshi must NEVER come back.  Satsohi's word will be taken as if he/she was a god...  Such power cannot exisit if a system to be open to choice.

Probably Satoshi has already given its opinion without telling who he is.

While he's at it, why can't Satoshi tell us who to vote for as the next president in the U.S.A.? It would save so much trouble over having to work it out for myself.
/sarcasm

OP needs to consider that an appeal to authority is only a substitute for valid argument, not a valid argument in itself. If Satoshi cares to voice an opinion, it only has weight insofar as it utilizes sound logic and accurate data in an effort to reach a good end. But such reasoning is available to everyone, it is not the province of only some mystic elite. Don't get me wrong, I think very highly of him and his genius. But it doesn't make him infallible even within the realm of bitcoin options.

Almost certainly?
Like in cryogenics let's say? ;)

Also, I would say that it is not needed yet mainly because tx no is still low and apart from that any change made to the protocol without full consensus is a mistake IMO.
There will be a winning and a losing side where there should ONLY be one side and that is no side ;)
This is not politics. It's the future of money which might become the past if not handled properly.

That is the spirit. Satoshi has the same weight as other people.

1. People are like herd animals, they need leaders. Most of us are followers and not leaders or commanders. We like to receive orders and follow them. That is the human neture.
That is why we need extraordinary characters to push humanity forward. Satoshi was one of these gifted people. Rest of will is just following his path.

2. Satoshi created Bitcoin and left it to us. That move to left bitcoin to peole was the greatest plan. He know that he could not be always around to lead bitcoin.
So if we can keep bitcoin alive by ourselves then we are not worthy of haveing it.

Very wise words, both from you and from Satoshi Nakamoto:

Satoshi should come and show his face at some point. How can he come up with such an amazing concept then just disappear?  It doesn't make sense

In bitcoin world, there is no leader.

If Satoshi is dead, we would know about it.

Satoshi may not want to reveal one's identity while alive, but dead, why not?

All Satoshi has to do is leave a will for one's next of kin revealing the truth, with evidences and pass phrase for his coins.

I can quite imagine a shocked lawyer revealing Satoshi will and reading it out in public.

There's no way Satoshi, or anyone else who created Bitcoin, dying and not leaving their legacy. History will forever be speculated.

It would be a final up-yours to bankers, who are itching to assassinate Satoshi.

I'm starting to believe that you are being optimistic. Everywhere I see "Satoshi wrote blah blah blah" or "Satoshi wanted blah blah blah" or "Satoshi would blah blah blah". People seem to treat his writing like it's the Quoran.

How would you know about somebodys death, when you know nothing about him, but a nickname?

There are a lot of different posts and news on the internet, people claiming to be Satoshi, etc. I think that it is irrelevant to discuss that either Satoshi is for real, its an alias/fake name, its a group of people operating under a name, etc. I have read thousands of articles over the internet and made my own speculations, but I could find a little bit of relevancy in this article: http://www.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/face-behind-bitcoin-247957.html

Satoshi is just a common man who has left all the btc money untouched, living a modest life and not interested/fearful to interact with the world anymore for all the questions he has to answer. Satoshi has handed over the project to specific people and he has no connection with bitcoin anymore.

if there is no incentive for full node users, i'm sure the current leaders are miners and merchants, yes there is no individual leader, but this is the same with politician and government, which is composed by many members

you see there is no real difference..

Bitcoin is a community software. It's not possible that a single person take decisions.

Simple...read this. "All Satoshi has to do is leave a will for one's next of kin revealing the truth, with evidences and pass phrase for his coins."

Do you know what the word 'evidences' mean?

Well, just hoping that the issue will resolve as soon as possible.. I'm tired with this drama  :(

I don't agree, satoshis opinion would get lots of backers.

Yes, it's like watching those boring soaps drama on TV.........yawn..........

I suppose your question is rethoric one, so I won't answer it.

Many people die by surprise and without preparing their last will. To me it looks exactly like this happened to Mr. Nakamoto.

We don't need satoshi to come back as the great leader of Bitcoin because otherwise this would start looking like a cult. I think both solutions suck but if I have to choose I prefer the Core approach rather than the Gavincoin one since it would centralize the nodes, while the blockstream approach doesn't.

We do not need a great leader. We have to increase the block size to facillitate transactions.

For every problem, time has an answer. Time will cure anything. We just need patience. When we face problems with 1MB block then we will need a solution. In between if bitcoin prices go down then that might be a good buying chances. No one can get a lowest price to enter a market, but we can get a AVG lowest price. Same thing for exit price.

Bitcoin is all about consensus and decentralization.

Why are you asking for Satoshi comes back and decide it like the ultimate instance of apelation?

it's probably the reason why he isn't among us anymore, he don't want to be the leader himself, and the only way was to escape in the void..

Not necessary. As far as I know no one ever knew how Satoshi looked like, or what his real name was. So unless he told someone near him that he was Satoshi, if he died no one would ever know that the inventor of bitcoin died. In other words, there is a possibility that we may never know more about him than we already know, so stop hopping for more. It is what it is. We must move on from satoshi and keep working on Bitcoin.

Unfortunately it seems most people are biologically wired to obey orders from totalitarian leaders, thats why the fiat scam is such a success that keeps surviving a crisis after another, it's no secret why dollar is king no matter how much it hyperinflates.

But then again, if a person would present a solution good enough for consensus to be formed around it, it would no longer be about the messenger but the message. No matter how reputable the person behind a certain BIP about the blocksize, many people look beyond just that when it comes to how good his proposal is.

That's right.