I do think we are going to have to raise the limit a bit just due to an increase in usage but not XT size, it just isn't needed and won't be getting the support needed.
The problem is transactions already waiting unnecessary long to be added to the blockchain (and obviously people complaining the first confirmation taking too long) because of the 1MB limit and there is still not consenzus among Bitcoin developers to switch to 2MB immediatelly... This is what makes XT more popular than it should be because it is currently the only already working way to solve the obvious problem. yet another full proof way is to give up some fees.. just sayin..  else of course you are free to fork off. Dont talk nonsence about fees, once more users decide to use Bitcoin than is current 1MB limit, there is no space for everyone to use Bitcoin regardless of high fees! The only alternative for other users is to not use 1MB Bitcoin and use another altcoin/s instead. Just saying the obvious... Some of them really believe that their settlement fairytales come true, and some of them are altcoin shills who are not stupid. I guess Hal Finney was also living this fairytale Actually there is a very good reason for Bitcoin-backed banks to exist, issuing their own digital cash currency, redeemable for bitcoins. Bitcoin itself cannot scale to have every single financial transaction in the world be broadcast to everyone and included in the block chain. There needs to be a secondary level of payment systems which is lighter weight and more efficient. Likewise, the time needed for Bitcoin transactions to finalize will be impractical for medium to large value purchases.
Bitcoin backed banks will solve these problems. They can work like banks did before nationalization of currency. Different banks can have different policies, some more aggressive, some more conservative. Some would be fractional reserve while others may be 100% Bitcoin backed. Interest rates may vary. Cash from some banks may trade at a discount to that from others.
George Selgin has worked out the theory of competitive free banking in detail, and he argues that such a system would be stable, inflation resistant and self-regulating.
I believe this will be the ultimate fate of Bitcoin, to be the "high-powered money" that serves as a reserve currency for banks that issue their own digital cash. Most Bitcoin transactions will occur between banks, to settle net transfers. Bitcoin transactions by private individuals will be as rare as... well, as Bitcoin based purchases are today.
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It will certainly help with scaling in the short term, but over longer periods, the real question becomes what percentage of transaction fees are skimmed off the top and don't end up going to the miners securing the main chain? It could potentially hit miners hard later down the line if we don't strike the balance right. Too much traffic on the main chain is bad, but too much off-chain could be equally precarious.
I don't see how that is a problem. There are basically two type of demand for transactions: cheap & instant and irreversible settlements. In the long run entities looking for secure settlements of large transactions will necessarily settle directly on the blockchain and it's likely the market fee for these transactions will cover miners' cost. I respect your optimism, but I'm not quite ready for all of us to bet the farm on "likely". We need to tread carefully on this. What's the plan if miner fees start to drop? Politely ask providers of the off-chain services to stop taking a cut? Somehow I don't see that working. The first major off-chain solution launched is Liquid, which is designed precisely for large scale settlements. Have we not got this a little backwards if "settlements of large transactions will necessarily settle directly on the blockchain"? That's not what Liquid is for. It's basically a liquidity pool for market makers & exchanges. Settlement on the Bitcoin blockchain offers unparalleled security so basically you are arguing that there is not going to be enough demand for this. I consider this pretty unlikely. Still, you can see where I'm going with this. We'll take the description from their own page: Using sidechain technology, Liquid reduces ISL by allowing for rapid transfers between accounts held by the varied participants in a separate, high-volume and low-fee cryptographic system that preserves many of the security benefits of the Bitcoin network. This, in addition to increasing the security of funds normally subject to explicit counterparty risk, fosters conditions that increase market liquidity and reduce capital requirements for on-blockchain business models. So yeah, you're right in that it helps increase liquidity, but at the same time, it's allowing exchanges to move large volumes of funds around while minimising contact with the main chain. Your vision of the future is that traditional financial institutions and big business will settle on the main chain and pay big fees to miners, but if they see exchanges doing it off-chain and still maintaining a high level of security whilst paying less in the process, why wouldn't other industries follow suit in a similar manner? Would be somewhat ironic if most big businesses jumped on sidechains and you had to start begging people to put their cups of coffee on the blockchain just so the miners get a bit of income.  So I have to ask, now that we've opened the potential Pandora's box of sidechains, can it be easily closed again if this turns out to be the wrong course of action? Even the participants of Liquid eventually settle on the mainchain. Bitcoin provides features that can not be replicated on sidechains: uninterdictable, censorship-resistant transactions with irrevocable finality of payment. No matter what superficial features are developed on top using sidechains there will be demand for the ultimate settlement layer. Also don't forget that ultimately the goal is to have miners merge mine the largest sidechains. It also wouldn't be surprising to see to see some of them pivot a part of their business into providing Lightning network nodes. |
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The system is basically just reproducing the inefficiencies and inequalities that exist in the wide world and reprinting them in a micro scale. I don't see a difference between the Bitcoin market and any other commodity market, prices are determined by irrational market forces rather than some reasoned, understandable force.
Bankers on Wall Street shift Bitcoin in huge amounts and probably buy a lot of coins when they are cheap to profit on. Arbitrage traders would be all over Bitcoin, it's amazing. But Bankers on Wall St. want cocaine, and cocaine can be purchased with Bitcoin.
Are Cartels and Mafia groups using BTC?
What's your point? You'd like for Bitcoin to make everyone equal? To "spread the wealth"? Not happening. Bitcoin is pure unadulterated crack capitalism cocaine. Of course bankers, traders and every one that is power hungry will love it. |
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Let the freeloaders drop Bitcoin.
If Bitcoin manages to attract the wealthiest of pockets and those that care about true censorship resistance & decentralization then we can consider it a success and a foundation on top of which the next financial system can be built.
So we keep Bitcoin just for the 0.001% just like credit cards in the 1950s, since we must not upgrade our technology from punched cards and telegraph lines. Given the engineering decisions behind Bitcoin you really have but two choices: accept that some transactions & use cases will be discriminated against or join the gang of XT shills and attempt to turn Bitcoin into VISA. |
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... I'm always impressed how non big blockers can say with a straight face that there is no problem leaving everything at 1 Megabyt blocks. Let's say blocks are half full now. What happens when legit transactions are constantly, on average, 150% of 1MB? It would mean that 33% of all valid transactions will never confirm. Can you imagine a currency where 33% of all transactions never confirm and that currency had somehow a chance to survive? And fee market... you realize that if constantly many legit transactions are waived, then the fees will rise constantly too. There would simply be no end because even if everyone raises their fee, still 33% can't get confirmed. What would happen? 33% of all users who use bitcoin would drop bitcoin. Surely that would be a great day for adoption. This is just basic economics. The fees will first rise sharply, then 33% of users will drop Bitcoin, some will move to (an)other crypto-currency(ies) with adaptive blocksize limits, some will move to the legacy banking system etc. Yes this could very well be the end of Bitcoin but not for distributed blockchain based crypto-currencies. Now we see why Gavin is so desperate about his fork. He cares about Bitcoin. Let the freeloaders drop Bitcoin. If Bitcoin manages to attract the wealthiest of pockets and those that care about true censorship resistance & decentralization then we can consider it a success and a foundation on top of which the next financial system can be built. |
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Is that what Blockstream has decided bitcoin should be?
Because that's not the original plan...
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Sad but true. Lets us turn Bitcoin into a settlement layer between banks by keeping the blocksize at 1 MB. We then sell it as de-centralization. Let's turn Bitcoin into Paypal by allowing freeloaders to spam the blockchain to oblivion until only datacenters can handle its load. We then sell it as "inclusion". |
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Seems like a lot of early adopters like Roger Ver, etc. were able to get in on the pre-Bubble market. For those of us holding satoshis, are we really participating in a democratic currency or are we assuming our position in a new economic reality, where the geeks run the world and the bankers cash out in Bitcoin?
I'm a little wary of it, if I'm honest. I can't see how a Bitcoin reliant society is really a viable alternative to our current!
Is Bitcoin democractic? No. Does it involve a wealth transfer? Yes. |
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You know what they say about images, thousand words, etc....  |
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Do you want to centralize node control over to mining nodes?
Giving node control to miners is not centralization unless you believe miners are centralized. If you believe miners are centralized, then what does it matter if the nodes are also? I do believe mining is a dangerously centralized business which is why the nodes are required to keep this inherent economy of scale in check. Mining centralization can only affect the network to a certain extent. Centralization of governance (full nodes) implies that they get to change the rules as it pleases them. Not a risk I wanna take. |
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As far as I see it Gavin is desperatly trying to save Bitcoin.
but there is no need to save anything at the moment. so far, bitcoin dealt with problems in a good manner. Right? Its like these "big blockers nao" are under some Reddit spell, talking about problems that are not problems and promoting some solution that is not a solution anyway..  I'm always impressed how non big blockers can say with a straight face that there is no problem leaving everything at 1 Megabyt blocks. Let's say blocks are half full now. What happens when legit transactions are constantly, on average, 150% of 1MB? It would mean that 33% of all valid transactions will never confirm. Can you imagine a currency where 33% of all transactions never confirm and that currency had somehow a chance to survive? And fee market... you realize that if constantly many legit transactions are waived, then the fees will rise constantly too. There would simply be no end because even if everyone raises their fee, still 33% can't get confirmed. What would happen? 33% of all users who use bitcoin would drop bitcoin. Surely that would be a great day for adoption. Except Bitcoin is not contained in a bubble and there are other alternatives by which one can hold & secure their wealth in Bitcoin yet use these superficial open source payment layers to transact with. Kinda like you don't use your savings account to buy nuggets at McDonald, ya know? |
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Bitcoins fame would turn way more negative. Simply because the normal use cases of money does not really exist anymore. The couple of people that would use it for legit things could be counted on one hand. And the rest? Would use an altcoin. And surely not the controversy lightning network. Way too many "great" altcoins tried that.
Oh noes! |
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Network is saturated today, the problem is right now!
Not tonight, dear |
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Yep, mostly uneconomic spam not valuable enough for their sender to include a reasonable fee. Microtransactions, if that's what you're referring to, are not spam, if people want to make big transactions and pay a big fee there are lots of better systems than bitcoin. "I’m sure that in 20 years there will either be very large (bitcoin) transaction volume or no volume." Not I’m sure that in 20 years there will either be no (bitcoin) transaction volume or the volume development team thinks is valuable enough to occur. Bitcoin denominated transactions can be made outside of the Bitcoin's blockchain. Microtransactions are simply not compatible with engineering demand of the blockchain and will be relegated to payment channels soon enough. Bitcoin is in fact best suited for large transactions (settlements). If a transaction is not valuable enough to cover the costs of the network security then it doesn't belong on the blockchain. |
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Both of you joined the forum around alltime high price. Must be the reason why you are so angry and notoriously attacking ad hominem.
Yep, you scared. |
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Please tell me you didn't just linked me to the Bitcoin Unlimited thread, a spherical cow pipedream that's never going to see the light of the day  Who's going to develop it, Peter R & cypherdoc ? The devs. Your unproductive fulltime brabbling here will never result in anything useful but the opposite: You and your alikes are the best enemies of core. You are doing great, together with the mods. Go on! Or do you think Adam should be happy with such 'help'? I'm doing my job supporting Bitcoin, running my node and buying coins. You, on the other hand are promoting contentious forks from incompetent individuals. I wouldn't say that's productive now, would ya? |
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Yep, mostly uneconomic spam not valuable enough for their sender to include a reasonable fee. |
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It's not the big block supporters who are censoring, banning, DDoSing.
Not liking XT does not equate to not supporting larger blocks - you do realise that there are several BIPs for bigger blocks? (again you are a typical XT shill who just pretends that BIP101 is the only bigger block proposal out there) If Mike Hearn wasn't doing things like refusing to go to meetups with core developers, miners and major businesses then maybe he would have more credibility but instead he keeps on pushing to become the CEO of Bitcoin which it appears very few people apart from Coinbase want. Which BIP has been chosen? Where can see the tests? How soon will it enter the main network? gimme a break. BIP101 was barely tested. why do you seem to be in a such a hurry? Because I'm waiting for a confirmation for the last 3 hours and there are 3MB in unconfirmed transactions... We need the upgrade now! And why are you so relaxed? So you acknowledge that there is barely any activity on the network yet you suggest something is wrong because your transaction is not getting through.... Raising the blocksize is gonna help how..? |
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Please tell me you didn't just linked me to the Bitcoin Unlimited thread, a spherical cow pipedream that's never going to see the light of the day Who's going to develop it, Peter R & cypherdoc ? |
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It's not the big block supporters who are censoring, banning, DDoSing.
Not liking XT does not equate to not supporting larger blocks - you do realise that there are several BIPs for bigger blocks? (again you are a typical XT shill who just pretends that BIP101 is the only bigger block proposal out there) If Mike Hearn wasn't doing things like refusing to go to meetups with core developers, miners and major businesses then maybe he would have more credibility but instead he keeps on pushing to become the CEO of Bitcoin which it appears very few people apart from Coinbase want. Which BIP has been chosen? Where can see the tests? How soon will it enter the main network? gimme a break. BIP101 was barely tested. why do you seem to be in a such a hurry? |
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err.. Bit rich Ciyam, since you started this 'with us against us' thread !?
Funny - as I'm not on any side (am just against the XT shilling and Mike Hearn's approach). It is the XT supporters that are demanding people to "take sides" (and attacking anyone that isn't on theirs but it would be better if the ad-homs were not being used by anyone). It's not the big block supporters who are censoring, banning, DDoSing. |
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