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Adam's block extension gives both sides exactly what they want.
I'm not sure why it didn't get more traction.
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I have not done anything regarding this. I told you the two reasons for this in my previous post. (The post you are responding to.) 1: Gavin have talked about statistical distribution of confirmations before. 2: Somebody are working on tree chains, which I think is related to the same, but I'm not sure. The ideas are out there. I think Core devs Gavin & Jeff are capable of handling this shit, but Core boss Wladimir is just too scared to make any decitions or point in any direction. If I don't see any development in this area in 6 months, I will probably contact Gavin to propose a deterministic distribution of transaction confirmations. But I do think fresher brains than mine are woring at it now. So I don't worry too much about bitcoin scaling. I don't understand what you mean by your puff and pass remark. Probably a language thing, as I am from Norway.  Sorry for being glib. It's more a product of my own frustration with the progress (or lack thereof). You may be thinking of IBLT? Probably don't need to remind Gavin, he made a nice gist about it. https://gist.github.com/gavinandresen/e20c3b5a1d4b97f79ac2I gotcha He he, no problem. And I don't even know what glib means! Can you give me the short version of what IBLT is? (Clicked the link, but too drunk to read many letters, ha ha ha) Anyway, don't worry about bitcoin scaling, it's not very difficult to scale. The beauty of the power distribution is simply that the best code will be used! CHEEEEEERS MATE!!!!  I'm sorry but you might as well drink more so that tomorrow you have forgotten all about the idea. The problem of scaling is indeed not technically difficult at all. The problem resides in messing with Bitcoin's carefully incentives. It is not enough to enable miners to process more transactions, we have to consider what the costs are on the whole network. |
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My take on the issue:
Any solution has to make spam expensive. Anything else is just adding further problems. That's why I like the solution implemented with Litecoins. Why does spam have to be expensive? if transactions are zero fee, then miners have no incentive to include them, so they'll just get filtered out and apply some mempool clearing system that forgets them after a certain time. If the transactions have a fee attached they are not really spam, so why not let supply and demand economics take care of the miners incentive? Because the miners incentives are not aligned with those of the network in a free floating block size scenario |
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I read this reddit. I'm not so sure that this "tragedy of the commons", would be fatal... which is the central argument of this Reddit post. **zip** I'm not sure this is the tragedy of the commons idea he's referring to. My guess is he's essentially referring to what I also proposed to be a tragedy of the commons in that miners will be incentivized to include as many transactions as possible within their blocks at potentially very little cost while the cost of a bloated blockchain are externalized to the nodes who are not paid for their work. Here are two quotes from Matt Corrallo on that subject: The vast majority of the hashpower is behind very large miners, who have little to no decentralization pressure. This results in very incompatible incentives, mainly that the incentive would be for the large miners to interconnect in a private network and generate only maximum-size blocks, creating a strong centralization pressure in the network. The issue of miners optimizing for returns has been discussed several times during this discussion, and, sadly, miners who are geographically colocated who are optimizing for returns with a free-floating blocksize will optimize away 50% of the network! Note that "optimize" here essentially means "centralize". |
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On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 6:13 PM, Mike Hearn <mike at plan99.net> wrote:
> Whilst it would be nice if miners in China can carry on forever regardless
> of their internet situation, nobody has any inherent "right" to mine if they
> can't do the job - if miners in China can't get the trivial amounts of
> bandwidth required through their firewall and end up being outcompeted then
> OK, too bad, we'll have to carry on without them.
>
> But I'm not sure why it should be a big deal. They can always run a node on
> a server in Taiwan and connect the hardware to it via a VPN or so.
Ignorant. You seem do not understand the current situation. We
suffered from orphans a lot when we started in 2013. It is now your
turn. If Western miners do not find a China-based VPN into China, or
if Western pools do not manage to improve their connectivity to China,
or run a node in China, it would be them to have higher orphans, not
us. Because we have 50%+. Stumbled on some gems reading the dev list #REKT
 Both the Chinese and non-Chinese miners will suffer higher orphan rates than if the connectivity through the Great Firewall of China was faster. The side with the greater hash power will suffer less losses due to orphans (all else equal); however, miners from either side will directly benefit by finding ways to improve connectivity with those on the other side of the wall. In other words, there is a mutual incentive to get around the wall. Peter I'm curious if you've considered Adam's blockchain extension proposal? https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39kqzs/how_about_a_softfork_optin_blocksize_increaseIt seems to provide, in some capacity, the type of node liberty you wished for. |
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On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 6:13 PM, Mike Hearn <mike at plan99.net> wrote:
> Whilst it would be nice if miners in China can carry on forever regardless
> of their internet situation, nobody has any inherent "right" to mine if they
> can't do the job - if miners in China can't get the trivial amounts of
> bandwidth required through their firewall and end up being outcompeted then
> OK, too bad, we'll have to carry on without them.
>
> But I'm not sure why it should be a big deal. They can always run a node on
> a server in Taiwan and connect the hardware to it via a VPN or so.
Ignorant. You seem do not understand the current situation. We
suffered from orphans a lot when we started in 2013. It is now your
turn. If Western miners do not find a China-based VPN into China, or
if Western pools do not manage to improve their connectivity to China,
or run a node in China, it would be them to have higher orphans, not
us. Because we have 50%+. Stumbled on some gems reading the dev list #REKT
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You tendency to confuse Bitcoin with free market is largely misguided. To quote davout: Do you think there should be an "artificial, centrally planned limit" on the amount of wood people are allowed to chop from the rainforest?
Do you think there should be an "artificial, centrally planned limit" on the amount of endangered species' specimens one is allowed to kill? Are you saying we need centrally planned limit to keep Bitcoin decentralized? YES! Thank you for answering honestly and not beating around the bush. It is my opinion that most of the small-block supporters feel the same way (i.e., that we need a centrally-planned limit to keep Bitcoin decentralized). I notice you didn't answer my(davout) questions. You wouldn't be against centrally planned limit on big game hunting would you  ? I don't believe in killing endangered animals; I think it's terrible, personally. So I guess I am glad there is a centrally-planned limit for killing bears in the mountains around Vancouver, for instance. But this isn't about what I believe…we're discussing what will actually happen. A centrally-planned limit on big game hunting requires that the organization implementing the limit also act to enforce that limit--with violence if necessary. I'm not going to wade into whether this is right or wrong, what I'm pointing out is that to enforce a quota that goes against the free market outcome requires the backing of strong organization or government willing to use physical force if necessary. Do you think Bitcoin Core is strong enough an organization to enforce a quota that goes against the natural free-market outcome? With 85% of the network nodes, it is already fairly strong. However, how will this organization physically force users not to defect to other implementations of Bitcoin that support larger block sizes to satisfy the demands of the market? That's ignoring the trick under our sleeve We'll have a whole suite of financial instruments and software boasting agile privacy and instant and unlimited transactions all supported by wealth of the scarcest and most decentralized crypto-commodity on this face of "the market". Open source and trustless. All brought to us by the good folks at Blockstream. I'm sensing you expect the good folks at Blockstream to code/review/test at a faster pace than they have been coding/reviewing/testing revisions to Bitcoin core. If I sense your expectations correctly, on what do you base these expectations for vigor and rigor? money plus they promise to hire and form more core devs. isn't that brilliant |
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Haha ok well time will tell.
Will I be seeing you in Montreal this coming weekend?
I was hoping theymos would give me his tickets he said he'd giveaway to btctalk users but I think he's afraid I'd attack Gavin  |
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You tendency to confuse Bitcoin with free market is largely misguided. To quote davout: Do you think there should be an "artificial, centrally planned limit" on the amount of wood people are allowed to chop from the rainforest?
Do you think there should be an "artificial, centrally planned limit" on the amount of endangered species' specimens one is allowed to kill? Are you saying we need centrally planned limit to keep Bitcoin decentralized? YES! Thank you for answering honestly and not beating around the bush. It is my opinion that most of the small-block supporters feel the same way (i.e., that we need a centrally-planned limit to keep Bitcoin decentralized). I notice you didn't answer my(davout) questions. You wouldn't be against centrally planned limit on big game hunting would you ? I don't believe in killing endangered animals; I think it's terrible, personally. So I guess I am glad there is a centrally-planned limit for killing bears in the mountains around Vancouver, for instance. But this isn't about what I believe…we're discussing what will actually happen. A centrally-planned limit on big game hunting requires that the organization implementing the limit also act to enforce that limit--with violence if necessary. I'm not going to wade into whether this is right or wrong, what I'm pointing out is that to enforce a quota that goes against the free market outcome requires the backing of strong organization or government willing to use physical force if necessary. Do you think Bitcoin Core is strong enough an organization to enforce a quota that goes against the natural free-market outcome? With 85% of the network nodes, it is already fairly strong. However, how will this organization physically force users not to defect to other implementations of Bitcoin that support larger block sizes to satisfy the demands of the market? That's ignoring the trick under our sleeve We'll have a whole suite of financial instruments and software boasting anonymity, privacy, instant and unlimited transactions all supported by wealth of the scarcest and most decentralized crypto-commodity on this face of "the market". Open source and trustless. All brought to us by the good folks at Blockstream. You don't have to use Bitcoin. Once you've acquired its value you will be given a whole spectrum of trust and decentralization layers on which to operate depending on the use you wish to make of it. I personally can't wait to stop having to use this patently broken Bitcoin blockchain that I love in favor of more intuitive, secure and agile tools. |
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Maybe you wan't to review my corrected post and re-consider yours.
Nah, I made a small alteration, but I feel the message is pretty clear. And if I'm wrong, I'll still have coins on both chains. The only one with something to lose here is you. Are you going to use the same logic when miners insist the fees can't cover their maintenance cost and they lobby to increase the block subsidy? "We should comply with what they're asking for else they'll leave us  " I don't think they are going to lobby for that because we've already established that larger blocks will give them greater income. This is what happens when you dig your heels in and refuse to discuss compromises. There might still time to change your tone and find some common ground. Better make it quick, though. Again, if you can get behind a smaller increase that would limit future centralisation, I'll support it with you. I'm prepared to stop this belligerence if you are. Otherwise, we'll see where the fork takes us. As it stands my vote is with BIP000 https://t.co/zElC8D9dPV |
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if we can convincingly mitigate spam issues, does that mean we can remove blocksize limit from consensus rules?
No. Bitcoin can be spammed with seemingly legitimate transactions (coinwallet.eu for example) |
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You tendency to confuse Bitcoin with free market is largely misguided. To quote davout: Do you think there should be an "artificial, centrally planned limit" on the amount of wood people are allowed to chop from the rainforest?
Do you think there should be an "artificial, centrally planned limit" on the amount of endangered species' specimens one is allowed to kill? Are you saying we need centrally planned limit to keep Bitcoin decentralized? YES! "Are you saying we need centrally planned limit (21,000,000) to keep Bitcoin from turning into fiat" YES! "Are you saying we need centrally planned block interval to keep Bitcoin secure" YES! I notice you didn't answer my(davout) questions. You wouldn't be against centrally planned limit on big game hunting would you ? |
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Again, no amount of twist and turns will make you right. The miners prefer clients who can pay for their services. If "the majority" can't, they won't think twice about leaving them in the dust.
What twists and turns? So you're telling me the miners are placing their votes for BIP proposals right now just for shits and giggles? Some of them clearly want larger blocks. If you don't want that, you better find a compromise pretty sharpish. Face the very evident reality in which we currently reside. If that rather singular belief that you don't need to compromise is what your entire argument hinges on, you're going to be sorely disappointed and it's you who is going to be left in the dust. OF COURSE THE MINERS WANT BIGGER BLOCKS. You really don't get it do you? It's not about what the miners want. It's about what's best for Bitcoin. Obviously if you ask the miners to vote for a proposal that gives them more control and more opportunity for profit they will vote for it, especially the bigger ones. The compromise is not on Bitcoin. It's on you to adopt it as it exists of fork off. I get it just fine, thanks. Bitcoin needs the miners to function. You're going to lose them because you don't want what they want. If you want to stay on a chain without the miners, have fun hodling your worthless asset dust. I'm honestly starting to wonder if you really get it.  Maybe you wan't to review my corrected post and re-consider yours. Are you going to use the same logic when miners insist the fees can't cover their maintenance cost and they lobby to increase the block subsidy? "We should comply with what they're asking for else they'll leave us " |
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Again, no amount of twist and turns will make you right. The miners prefer clients who can pay for their services. If "the majority" can't, they won't think twice about leaving them in the dust.
What twists and turns? So you're telling me the miners are placing their votes for BIP proposals right now just for shits and giggles? Some of them clearly want larger blocks. If you don't want that, you better find a compromise pretty sharpish. Face the very evident reality in which we currently reside. If that rather singular belief that you don't need to compromise is what your entire argument hinges on, you're going to be sorely disappointed and it's you who is going to be left in the dust. You really don't get it do you? It's not about what the miners want. It's about what's best for Bitcoin. It's blatantly obvious from past experiences that a good majority of miners don't have a clue what that is. Obviously if you ask the miners to vote for a proposal that gives them more control and more opportunity for profit they will vote for it, especially the bigger ones. Moreover chances are they are likely voting AGAINST XT/BIP101 more than anything else. Remember also that there are no such things as "the miners" as a collective. Some couldn't bother about bigger blocks since they can barely handle actual load, other larger miners see in bigger blocks an opportunity to consolidate their share of the network by eventually putting smaller ones out of business. The compromise is not on Bitcoin. It's on you to adopt it as it exists of fork off. |
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They can't fork away into a more centralized free coin if they wish to...
Indeed. You keep posting these charts as if the negative externality was not obvious....
I am trying to get both sides to speak the same language. I've partly succeeded because it sounds like we are in agreement regarding the above chart, and just in disagreement over the nature of the externality that may exist. You think it's hugely negative; I think it's actually positive. My question to you is this: Production quotas (to reduce perceived externalities) are AFAIK always enforced by some form of centralized government or powerful institution. Do you believe it will be possible to enforce this block space production quota without creating the very centralized governance model you are afraid of? This relates to my debates with Gmax: The physicist James Clerk Maxwell hypothesized a daemon who could quickly open and close valves to collect the air molecules with higher kinetic energy from the slower moving molecules, thereby creating a perpetual motion machine.
The cryptographer Gregory Maxwell hypothesized a daemon who could control the block size limit to prevent mining centralization without turning into the very centralized force the daemon was summoned to fight. I think it will need centralize intervention until the block size can be set in stone and forgotten. You tendency to confuse Bitcoin with free market is largely misguided. To quote davout: Do you think there should be an "artificial, centrally planned limit" on the amount of wood people are allowed to chop from the rainforest?
Do you think there should be an "artificial, centrally planned limit" on the amount of endangered species' specimens one is allowed to kill? |
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Hence why I've been trying to find some common ground with dynamic proposals. I'm not saying it has to be raised right now. Please stop asserting this. I'm not saying let's support free shit for everyone. Please stop asserting this. A dynamic proposal would encourage a fee market in a more natural and gradual way than a blunt-force cap and provides some flexibility for the network if we do see a sudden surge in traffic. It doesn't mean free shit for everyone forever. I am increasingly doubtful of dynamic proposals for two reasons: they can be gamed by miners and they don't address the actual problem of cost externalization to nodes. My hope is that we can eventually set the blocksize in stone forever when we have built the proper infrastructures of payment channels, sidechains and quality off-chain services. If these prove to be more efficient, faster and generally more easy to use then I, for one, wouldn't care using them for 95% of my transactions. That's a big gamble for you to take. I'm highly dubious that most one-percenters are going to repeat the mistake some people here are making. They're going to invest in something they can control. They're not going to invest in an open source coin where they can't enforce rules that benefit them at the expense of everyone else. If you want one-percenter-coin, I suggest you get coding on a closed source project. It's not a gamble, it's economics. You might not agree but you're wrong. The one-percenters are not the governement, they could careless about "control". What they care about is privacy and security for their wealth from governement taxes, inflation, confiscation, censorship etc. Bitcoin is the one and only coin which currently boast these attributes. So no, again, it is not a matter of interpretation: you are absolutely wrong about this aspect. I don't want a "one-percenter exclusive" coin, I want the coin that the 1% will adopt, because that is where the value resides. Again, there's no way you can prevent centralisation altogether. You can either work with us and find a compromise that keeps centralisation to a minimum, or you can take the risk that the majority won't continue supporting a network that doesn't support them and lose some hashpower to the network that does. Again, it's an open source coin, so it's inevitable that miners will have the choice eventually. There is literally nothing you can do to prevent that happening, so by your definition, it's already broken and you should have chosen a closed source coin to invest in.
Again, no amount of twist and turns will make you right. The miners prefer clients who can pay for their services. If "the majority" can't, they won't think twice about leaving them in the dust. I'm sorry for the strong words but as one wise man by the name of hdbuck once said : fuck compromises, fuck the majority. If you wanna argue there is nothing we can do to stop centralization then fuck you too, you're definitely not working with us (those that actually care about Bitcoin and what it stands for).  |
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Of course I understand, you've been very clear. I just happen not to agree. Therein lies the dilemma. As far as it goes for the "mess" you mention, I still can't help but see the timeline like this: Early adopters buy in,
Satoshi then introduces the 1mb cap (without testing) and there's little-to-no drama whatsoever,
Early adopters realise this could benefit them immensely if they can keep it capped for as long as possible,
Someone proposes a change to the cap as they realise not doing so could be detrimental to late adopters,
Drama ensues.
While I recognise there are implications for decentralisation if the blocksize is too large, I still have a feeling this is being overplayed. I'm prepared to support smaller increases if that's what it takes to break the deadlock (as are others, so work with us, not against us), but I won't accept something that only results in creating a safe haven for some one-percenters if everything else in the global economy goes tits up. There's a balance to be struck. Either we find that balance, or things get messy and we find out how much the asset class is really worth when the people who want a global currency are on another chain. I guarantee you won't attract the same level of hashpower if it plays out like that, so think this through very carefully. I really want to work with you but I can't do that until you see things a bit more clearly. First, you have the dilemma wrong. I cannot say why you pretend the small block size benefits early adopters (other than they're rich?) but realise you could find yourself in their seat sooner than later. To be clear, what I mean by that is lifting the block size cap effectively works as a subsidy for transaction fees. What we are now experiencing is a crowd of newcomers that were sold on the idea that Bitcoin was this fantastic payment payment network that would somehow replace all other methods of online payment FOR FREE. In effect we have created a considerable mass of people who feel they are entitled to a certain RIGHT to transact on Bitcoin's blockchain at zero or very low costs. The dilemma is this: if we lift the cap now and continue subsidizing fees where does this stop? Understand that the "Free-Shit-Army" only grows in number as Bitcoin adoption increases. At some point YOU might be the person to try and tell them that they cannot have their cake and eat it too. If the supposed adoption explosion big block supporters are trying to sell to everyone really occurs, NONE of the existing proposition will satisfy their demand. "Drama ensues." As for your comments on people wanting a global currency forking to another chain, by all means go ahead. Unfortunately they should soon realize this is not how an economy is built. Getting 1% to adopt Bitcoin is quity simply the best case scenario around. That would mean that effectively most of the fiat wealth has transferred over to Bitcoin. That's the whole point about our little project. If you really propose that this chain goes head-to-head with the remaining 99% and their "global currency" let me break it to you now that it would be a blood bath. Money gains value by people trusting capital to it ie. "hodling", not by trying to exchange it for a bunch of things (transactions). Therefore, I guarantee that you are wrong and miners will follow the money because they are certain rich people can afford the prices they have to pay to cover the miners' cost of supporting the network Ultimately, larger blocks will provide greater financial benefits to miners than small ones. Ergo, miners are going to choose larger blocks given the opportunity. I can't see how you're going to prevent that from happening. There is no reality or alternate universe where this doesn't hold true.
That part is particularely disappointing. You seemingly understand the dynamics at stake but can't put them together. Bitcoin is not about having miners do whatever they'd like so as to maximize profit. If it was it would be broken already. What you are describing is precisely the tragedy of the commons that would unfold if miners get to pick the size of the blocks: they would eventually be incentivized to create ever-bigger blocks while externalizing costs to nodes who aren't paid for their work. In short, the incentives of two major players in the network are no longer aligned and all hell breaks lose as the only way to continue running the network is to centralize. |
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There are also a small number of people expressing more militant views that Bitcoin should become more of an asset for a privileged few than a global currency and argue for a permanent 1MB blocksize
I would hope seeing the mess the current debate for change has created you would understand why some people are against any change to the consensus protocol as long as Bitcoin works as intended. Global currency as you like to refer to it, is technically impossible on a single layer, and considering Proof-of Work and its distributed consensus design. That's a very bold statement here and far from being true. Solving the Byzantine generals problem was once considered impossible too. And it was never technically solved, because it is impossible. All Bitcoin does is carefully arrange incentives to work around the problem. |
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Why is the payment channel idea not good enough for most transactions that do not require censorship resistance?
There's nothing wrong with it if that is what the free market decides. If forcing transactions into payment channels requires a production quota on block space, then I think there is something wrong with it.  Moreover, I don't think it would even be possible to enforce the quota, since the pressure indicated by the brown shaded region in the lower chart would provide impetus to fork the protocol (larger block sizes) to satisfy the demand unmet due to the quota. Source: http://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/page-12#post-392They can't fork away into a more centralized coin if they wish to. At some point we should expect Bitcoin holder to recognize what makes it different than other solutions (hint: not transactions). You keep posting these charts as if the negative externality was not obvious.... |
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