Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

1) Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. If someone could point me to where the main discussion is happening on this, I would be most appreciative. I searched the forum and found lots of Russian discussion.

2) Blocksize. In some ways this is really exciting - the world is using Bitcoin! Obviously, this thing now needs to scale - in some way. That could be off-chain clearing houses, an increase in block size, SegWit or Lightning network... so many ways it could happen, and a seemingly deadlocked debate on the path forward. I am seeking info to prep for a podcast on the subject. Yeah I know many people have done a podcast on the subject but I like to talk into my computer and I haven't done it in a while. So I have some questions. Any help is appreciated:

3) Where can I read information on the various popular Blocksize solutions? I am digging through bitcointalk looking but not finding much

4) I heard discussion on some of the solutions is banned here (is that true?). While that is a bit shocking, I would appreciate a PM if there is another place to view one or more of the banned solution discussions.

5) Can anyone explain to me why SegWit wasn't universally accepted as the solution when it was introduced?

6) If anyone can explain why the various different parties are fighting so vigorously, I would love that. I can't seem to find the core reasons why community is at each others' throats.

Thanks for all helps.

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/

Excellent topic, O/P.  I have wondered which route forward would be best many times myself, but the subject is too technical for me.

I will take a look at the reddit link by jonald, but I would like to see correspondents HERE explain in simple (hah, smile) language the pluses and minuses of BU v SW.

EDIT:  Perhaps someone could explain in a similar way the advantages (or not) of forking too.

'1) Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. If someone could point me to where the main discussion is happening on this, I would be most appreciative. I searched the forum and found lots of Russian discussion.'

discussion is crazily fragmented. you can't really get a balanced discussion on r/bitcoin or r/btc. they're in opposing camps.



'3) Where can I read information on the various popular Blocksize solutions? I am digging through bitcointalk looking but not finding much'

maybe this illuminates something - https://i.redd.it/riinqu9u4rey.png




'4) I heard discussion on some of the solutions is banned here (is that true?). While that is a bit shocking, I would appreciate a PM if there is another place to view one or more of the banned solution discussions. '

it's not banned as far as i can tell. previous attempts at hard forks when discussed were moved to the altcoin section. that doesn't seem to be happening with unlimited.



'5) Can anyone explain to me why SegWit wasn't universally accepted as the solution when it was introduced? '

it's big change however you want to look at it. a lot of miners are lazy, not interested in educating themselves or skeptical. even the ones who aren't are happy to keep things as they are. bitcoin is working for them and they're interested in short term profits, not risking anything for future possibilities. previous upgrades that were universally accepted were also universally beneficial right now.



'6) If anyone can explain why the various different parties are fighting so vigorously, I would love that. I can't seem to find the core reasons why community is at each others' throats.'

each side believes the other is trying for some type of power grab. lots of people believe core is trying to cripple bitcoin to force people to use third party solutions and is against the spirit of bitcoin being accessible to everyone on chain.

the people who hate unlimited think it's a power grab by a small group of chinese miners and agitators to make bitcoin more centralised than ever and it's using code that isn't tested thoroughly enough.

The proper place to go is https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinscaling/

nope, that is the worse place if you want to read stuff about bitcoin. it is the same as /r/bitcoin these two subs has turned into two side and while being opposite of each other, they are completely the same.

/r/btc bashes anything core and Segwit related
/r/bitcoin bashes anything BU related

and all the while nothing is solved and reading the arguments is just confusing everyone specially newcomers who don't know what is what :)
and the worse thing is that the arguments don't go anywhere. there is never a conclusion lol

OP if you want reliable information you need to gain it yourself by looking at the code. i know it is impossible for majority but i am afraid that is the only reliable way at this point.

Blocksize debate is an optimization issue.

Its a reaction to the question of how to make bitcoin code run faster and execute more transactions.

Increasing block size is like adding more RAM to your computer. In some cases you might notice an improvement. In other cases, it will make no difference whatsoever.

Whether block size makes a difference or not depends on where the bottleneck in the BTC transaction software is.

Those who support larger block sizes assume the bottleneck in BTC transactions is the size of blocks which store transaction data.

I've never heard of anyone attempting to prove or disprove this. The way to optimize issues like transaction speed is to profile code to breakdown execution flow.

I've haven't been paying much attention to say I'm up on everything. But that seems like the most neglected area.

as unbiased as i can be

segwit works not by simple activation. but by moving funds long after activation to new keys that allow part of a tx's data to safely sit outside the native(normal/base) bitcoin block.

to achieve say 1.1x(1.1mb) scaling of the tx count requires ~10% of transactions inside the native block to be using segwit keys to allow and allowing more space within the native block

as you can see by this. where the yellow is the old native key use. and the grey is the new segwit key use to achieve ~2mb of data and ~2x tx count
https://i.imgur.com/rHY7yQ6.png

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dynamics works not by simple activation. but by allowing the native(normal/base) block to grow passed its old 1mb limit to allow in more transactions. without users needing to move funds to new special keys

in reality this wont be an overnight sudden jump to 2mb. pools and nodes would test the water in small increments to see the orphan and unsync node risk/count. and if deemed safe the consensus mechanism keeps the new increment and then steadily grows over time, based on how safe it is to do so

as you can see by this. where the yellow is the old native key use.

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

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there are some pro's and cons of each
currently editing pros and cons to address OP's questions, (trying to be as unbiased as i can(but hard to achieve))

---

segwit pros
*if 100% of key utility inside the base block will be segwit. then those using segwit keys cannot perform sigop, maleation, .. and it offers extra tx count
*non segwit nodes get trimmed data (lacking signatures of segwit tx's outside native block). allowing them to connect as second tier nodes downstream nodes but are not part of the full validation/syncing network.
*expect if 100% segwit key utility, an average of 2mb of full untrimmed data. (based on current natural healthy lean-ish tx's stats)

segwit cons
*100% of key utility inside the base block will not be segwit! native key are not prevented and can perform sigop/bloat attacks bringing down tx count
*non segwit nodes get trimmed data (lacking signatures of segwit tx's outside native block). becoming second tier nodes that are not part of the full validation/syncing network. but connected as downstream nodes
*non segwit nodes need to completely rewrite the entire implementation with thousands of lines of code to be segwit validatable/ full syncing
*expect untrimmed blocks to be less than 2mb if native attacked, more if segwit bloat attacked
*if there was a bug/exploit requiring downgrading. those funds on segwit keys become locked and unspendable if no chance to move back to native keys before downgrading

---

dynamic pros
*grows the blocksize without users needing to change to different keytypes
*compatible with several diverse implementations but not core.
*core require only rewriting a few lines of code to stay part of a dynamic network
*if there was a bug/exploit blocks are simply made at under 1mb and dont require users changing keys/moving funds/having funds locked

dynamic cons
*not compatible with core.
*non dynamic accepting nodes fall off the network completely once dynamics reach the limits non dynamic implementations have set

Ultimately, I think the miners will have this. While the team is ultimately the final arbiter of code, the constituents, if you will, are the miners. As we all know, that's China, and I don't think the Chinese mining community is that incentivized to do anything that makes mining less efficient. We will see, but the fact that it has taken this long to solve this problem is telling. This is a pretty easy fix once we come to consensus. It just seems like getting to a consensus is the hard part.