The block size is an intentionally limited economic resource, just like the 21,000,000-bitcoin limit. I can not reconcile this statement with the comments made by Satoshi in the rest of the thread. Apparently nobody knew it was "intentionally limited" back then, including the designer. I'll accept that you and other developers changed your mind at some point about whether or not to increase the block size, but that leaving it limited was the plan from the beginning is not at all credible. |
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It's hard enough to sell the idea of a distributed cryptocurrency without also needing to explain that we need more than one of them to get full functionality.
Who says you need more than one currency? The cluelessness in this thread astounds me. How do people manage to keep repeating the same factually incorrect claims after they've refuted in allcaps? Call the "other layers" whatever you want, but if it turn out the scalability restrictions on the blockchain are not lifted people are going to look at the wiki, and look at the threads talking about this and conclude they've been taken in by a bait-and-switch. Bitcoin is not being advertised right now as a base settlement layer that the average person will never be allowed to interact with directly but instead will be required to interact with a third-party entity who is privileged enough to use one of the 200 million permitted transactions per year. Bitcoin will not be served well by the appearance (justified or not) that vested interests want to keep the transaction rate crippled in order to promote their pet projects and alternative cryptocurrencies. The worst thing that can happen for Bitcoin is for scalability solutions to exist, but not be adopted for political reasons. |
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Sigh, they need to do more research.
Transaction rates can easily scale far beyond 7 tps, even with 1MB limit in place.
The current network is just the base settlement layer.
Many organizations will layer instant payment networks, settlement networks, credit layers and other things on top of the current layer.
Anybody who looks at the current technology and assumes "that's all there is" or "the whole world is limited to the current network" makes fatally flawed assumptions.
Satoshi openly acknowledged this by noting insuitability of microtransactions for the current network, and it is clear that digitally signed messages may be sent, exchanged, combined by a myriad different payment processors, aggregators etc. What changed in your understanding of marketing during the last three years? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347.msg15145#msg15145It's hard enough to sell the idea of a distributed cryptocurrency without also needing to explain that we need more than one of them to get full functionality. That will tend to make merchants who would otherwise adopt it just throw up their hands and forget about the whole thing. |
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Already controversy is brewing... Already businesses are starting to back away from bitcoin because if the block limit isn't raised then one of three things will happen: 1. Bitcoin fails. 2. Bitcoin gets used only for moving large amounts of money and other cryptocurrencies take over eventually displacing bitcoin itself. 3. Bitcoin gets used for only moving large amounts of money and "bitcoin clearing houses" fill the gaps, which increase the risk of fraud/theft/unaccountability, add avenues of attack, and form REAL centralization. Not some hypothetical BS.
"already controversy is brewing" Wonderful zero-evidence hypothetical BS handwaving there. Not quite zero evidence: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145498.msg1543934#msg1543934 |
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Any second, any second... Wait for it... any second... here we... any... any... just about nnnnn.... any second... keep watching... keep watching... Here we ggggg.... any moment, right about right nnnn... it's right on the edge... here it cccc... don't look away... one little... just one... any second... It... is... going... to... happen... five... four... three... two... one and a half... one and a quarter... one and three sixteenths... here it... here it... nearly...
Just need someone to buy up those last 8000 BTC:  |
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But so far there is no real work done about that. If we want to speak about increasing the blocksize, then pruning must be considered too. Depends on your definition of "work". |
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Exponential growth in block size = impossibility for average users to run a full node Better algorithms will allow average users to process a much higher transaction rate on inexpensive hardware. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88208.0 |
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Smaller blocks = more difficult to get your transaction verified = higher fees to get your transaction on a block. Smaller blocks = more difficult to get your transaction verified = frustrated users = lower adoption = possible failure of the currency |
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Point #2 is patently false. Yes, it sounds counter-intuitive because it's not true. Giving the customer more payment options always increases sales, because it expands who can be a customer. If some product is desired at all then having maximum options to pay for it is a bonus/benefit, not a drawback. Do you know that because you've actually looked at data and measured it or are you just assuming, because the person you're quoting likely has. |
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When miners are forced to choose which transactions to exclude in a candidate block, due to limited space, they will obviously discard the transactions with the lowest fees (per kilobyte). This creates competition and drives the fees up to a new equilibrium level. Or maybe when people can't get their transactions processed in a timely fashion, regardless of how much they pay in fees, they'll just abandon Bitcoin entirely and the miners will get nothing. Seriously though, if reducing the number of transactions will increase miner revenue then why stop at seven transactions per second? Reduce the limit so that only one transaction is allowed per block and watch miner profitability go through the roof. |
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A fixed block size maximizes the hashing power since it forces fees to increase to the equilibrium level. If this theory is true why don't Mastercard and Visa set a limit on the number of transactions they process in order to maximize their fee revenue? |
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I'm still confused on your argument. Why do you want Bitcoin not to change? You even started your post of confirming the fact that Bitcoin has already changed in the past. Shouldn't you just leave Bitcoin and make your own currency? One that can't change? If it has already changed in the past, why are you fighting so hard that it would never change again?
Especially a change that has been anticipated and talked about since the very beginning: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347Raising the max block size was always part of the plan - it's what was always brought up whenever some bitcoin skeptic mention the low transaction rate. Now all of a sudden when the time is approaching to do it some people want to keep bitcoin limited to seven transactions per second. |
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The danger is that someone will lure you into agreeing to download and use a node that permits larger blocks, or that targets a faser time between blocks, or both, so that the fastest speed largest possible blocks scale outpaces the rate at which the class of equipment you are accustomed to using to run your full node grows naturally in the course of the normal day to day obsoleting of computer hardware. The risk of blockchain size outpacing hard drive capacity is only a danger if you assume that all development currently underway to address this problem ceases: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88208.0 |
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Any guesses how I chose those 3 bitcointalk.org profiles..?  You're a sockpuppet for one of those three profiles? |
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In a hard fork, it is about getting _all_ of _everyone_ to change the rule at exactly the same time. Doing a hard fork where not everyone is on the same side, is an outright disaster. Every coin that existed before the fork will be spendable once on every side of the chain. If this happens, it is economic suicide for the system. Sure it may recover after a short while, when people realize to pick the side that most others chose, but it is not something I want to see happening. This isn't a hard problem to solve at a technical level. Have the nodes keep track of the version numbers they see on the network. When X% of the network has upgraded to a version which supports the new rules, and when Y% of the miners indicate their support via coinbase flags switch to the new rules. Until then use the old rules. Let the users decide when and if to switch. |
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The changes in the last year were "soft forks" -- forks that required all miners to upgrade (if they don't, their blocks are ignored), but that do not require merchants/users to upgrade. For this change the distinction is hardly relevant, since it won't happen unless the merchants/users who run full nodes upgrade first. |
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I thought I had read it. We are here dissing or discussing the fact the clients would float the limit, aren't we?
If the limit can float, who controls the things it takes into account in determining whether to float and how much to float? What is it looking at to make the decision, that is not controlled by miners? There is still the question of what the default behavior should be. Here is a proposal:
Ignore blocks that take your node longer than N seconds to verify.
I'd propose that N be: 60 seconds if you are catching up with the blockchain. 5 seconds if you are all caught-up. But allow miners/merchants/users to easily change those defaults. The decision about what blocks to relay is made by the p2p network. What percentage of the people running full nodes are also mining? |
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I thought one of the main points being brought up is that on the contrary it allows Joe Superminer to progressively drive more and more competitors off the net until he and he along controls all the mining. (Presumably pretending to be more than one mining operation, of course, to keep people from noticing he has become the sole arbiter of the network.) Did you read the proposal? The decision about how large blocks can be rests with the nodes which relay blocks, not the miners. If Joe Superminer controls enough of the hashing power and the p2p network to force a change through he could ruin the network today, with or without any change to the protocol. |
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