When someone says "they want to increase the block limit so that the network can grow", they can mean only one thing, they want the number of transactions on the network to grow since clearly the number of new people willing to run a full node with increased storage decreases (above some limit) as the size of the blockchain increases. This is not at all clear. Ok, maybe not crystal clear down to the exact numbers but qualitatively it is correct. This can proved easily by considering the upper bound, take the total installed 'potential nodes' on the planet with more than max_block_size*144*365 available storage space and there is your total available number of nodes. Make some assumptions about how many of those available nodes will actually run bitcoin and you get your maximum practical network size, measured in number of full nodes. Increasing the block size limits the number of nodes unless there is added sufficient incentive for new nodes to bring online the new storage/relaying capacity. Whether that is a good or bad thing is a separate issue. |
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Okay, here's some numbers so we are all on same page and not throwing around "vagaries"
The maximum size of the blockchain growth at present 1 MB block limit is 52.5 GByte per year.
At an increased block limit of 5 MByte => 262.8 GByte per year.
Similarly for 10Mbyte, max. growth => 525.6 GByte per year.
When someone says "they want to increase the block limit so that the network can grow", they can mean only one thing, they want the number of transactions on the network to grow since clearly the number of new people willing to run a full node with increased storage decreases (above some limit) as the size of the blockchain increases. So just to be clear here, they do not mean they want the network to grow but that they want the usage of the network to grow, which is not the same thing.
So as long as everybody is clear that increasing the size of the blocks is limiting the number of full nodes then that is okay, but what you are using as the metric for the "size" of the network is important here.
Is the size of the network the number of nodes or the number of transactions? What is the stated goal here, maximizing transactions or maximizing network nodes?
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The solution that allows for the most number of connected nodes must be the preferred one.
Whether those nodes are mining or not seems immaterial at this point as mining is already a highly specialised endeavour. There are already 'pooled' blockchain storage solutions like electrum available.
It seems to me that the blockchain storage that your average commodity desktop/laptop PC can tolerate for the foreseeable future must be the over-riding determiner of maximum block size so that the most number of transaction transmitting, relaying nodes can realistically remain connected to the network.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/04/03/bitcoin-obliterates-the-state-theory-of-money/Usual great quality from Jon Matonis in his deconstruction of Denninger's failed attempt ... also some delicious mind ticklers in there too like the below  Typically, entropy refers to a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermodynamic system that is also usually considered to be a measure of the system’s disorder. In the case of bitcoin, I suspect Denninger is taking it to mean the degradation of the matter in the universe because of his explicit comparison to gold. While it is true that bitcoins lost or forgotten are ultimately irretrievable, I view that as a feature not a bug because it is the prevailing trait of a digital bearer instrument. Two bitcoin digital attributes that make it superior to physical gold are its ability to create backups and its difficulty of confiscation. Furthermore, the number of spaces to the right of the decimal point (currently eight) is immaterial to bitcoin’s suitability as a monetary unit.
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Sounds expensive. These web wallets seem like unexploded bombs just lying around waiting to go off. |
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'Best' hacks are when they have no clue what just happened  ... the "wtf hack". |
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I didn't get to post this earlier, but another creative idea (which is extreme) is to.
1. print and laminate or engrave on metal or hard plastic.
2. pour melted wax around.
3. put in bigger wooden or plastic box.
4. pour cement around.
You get a block of cement when it's dry. You will have to break open the cement but since there is a box, the contents of the box is protected. The wax is also additional protection for the object which actually holds the private key for your bitcoins.
The problem with fingerprints is that it has to consistently give the same output. Fingerprint scanners work by comparing your scan of right now, with something it stored previously, and checking to see how much of before and now is the same. It can't give the exact same output all the time, because of finger orientation, so I don't know how a hash of your fingerprint would be secure.
Also if you wound your finger with a blade cut or something, or it grows a pimple, then the scan would fail.
Yes, this is all true. What could be used though is the facial recognition software that works on 8-26 (depending on quality) unique numerical coordinates for features on the human face. That could be the basis for a brain wallet or hashed, etc ... |
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How about your fingerprint as the basis for the hash? (you'd need something to convert a fingerprint to a 'string')
Like from a fingerprint scanner input? |
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The more I think about it, the more I wonder how far the government will go to stop it. In the US, they've already once confiscated our gold using the threat of fines and imprisonmnet. Could they do the same here? Wouldn't it be as simple as taking our safes, our computers, and cracking our password management software to know where our Bitcoin is stored? Many people comment about how bitcoin has no army standing behind it ... well maybe no army with guns but as is now widely acknowledged cyber-war is a major concern for nation states. Who would you want to have backing your digital currency? The people who can hack or the innumerate? Bitcoiners are not powerless to "back" their currency if the occasion should arise. Mercenaries from the alphabet agencies can be paid in bitcoins if they prefer also of course. The idea is the weapon. |
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cashout... to worthless fiat? why would i want to do that?
Exactly. People holding substantial amounts of wealth in bitcoin should not sell bitcoins for fiat currency but instead either invest bitcoins into other assets like cash-flow positive real estate or spend bitcoins on consumer goods like VPNs, Porsche Cayennes or Lear Jets (I hear one sold about a month ago on Silk Road). sunnankar wants to be the first bitzillionaire |
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I'm missing the jump to bitcoin concerning itself about enabling anonymous mining from block size limits?
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I wouldn't be at all surprised if Western Union became a sort of Bitcoin processor. There are lots of demand for instant payments, and while BTC transfers are fast, they aren't quite instant. Instant is needed for buying groceries in a timely manner, and people will probably pay some for that service. Its hard to buy BTC with USD. They could bridge that gap. If nothing else they lend their legitimacy to BTC and walk away with a few extra coins in their pocket for the favor.
This. Western Union are well-positioned to be BitInstant's worst nightmare if they move into this space. BitInstant could look at expanding into the other side of the trade also to compete with them I suppose? "Just going to pop down to the BitInstant office and pick up some money XXY is sending me." |
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This makes obvious sense for WU but i thought they would be too stuck in their ways with admin inertia to jump on this wagon. It must be the old pioneering spirit of the railroad coming out.
The BIG win that WU could achieve here is to use bitcoin network as their backbone for transferring payments around and do away with their legacy infrastructure. Their WU affiliates in every office all over the world now only needs a bitcoin enabled PC running to send/receive payments.
WU would become the p2p fiat exchange for the masses with all their installed infrastructure ... and oh yeah, if you want to take buy/sell bitcoin from local WU office can do that too.
These guys know exactly what needs to be done to make this happen on global scale tomorrow.
Good Luck to them ... they are one company that has stuck it out against the banking elite in the payments space for over a century.
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Wonder if Peter Schiff would accept bitcoin for combi-bars?? .. might be nice to have 1 or 2 around for novelty or in an emergency.
Actually, has anyone asked Euro-Pacific Capital if they are considering accepting bitcoins at all? Do they have a bitcoin strategy?
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Yeah its ..."bad currency!, naughty, naughty currency!" turns round, rubs hands and smiles  |
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... it looks like slush has PCB boards growing out of his head like horns! Edit: hmmm, stick, red bulldog clip on your laptop to keep the LCD from flickering on/off? |
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Any ETA for when we arrive in the G77, G20? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_77Could ask for a "seat at the table" of UN for the lulz ... or the G-24 ?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_24The Group of 24 (G24), a chapter of the G-77, was established in 1971 to coordinate the positions of developing countries on international monetary and development finance issues and to ensure that their interests were adequately represented in negotiations on international monetary matters. |
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It is kind of amazing with today's technology someone can just twiddle a few flags on a database and suddenly tens of thousands of people are much, much poorer. This is essentialy the only difference between the situation now and before the crisis blew up, that and few guys in suits going into a courthouse to "make it officially legal". Wonder who the IT sys admin guys for these banks are? How does they feel about plundering a vast portion of their countrymen by changing a few settings in a database? Wonder if they have bitcoins? |
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That actually effectively illustrates part of the difficulty in creating a solution: our economic reasoning will be clouded for many years by the block subsidy, which will probably dwarf the transaction fees for years to come. Efficiencies which must exist in the self-supporting, fee-only future are unseen at this time. Agreed, the block reward incentive drives solely hash-power, whereas the fees-only regime (after circa 2040) is expected to incentivise both hash-power and tx storage. The phase we are entering now will be the gradual transition between the two regimes for approx. the next 25 years. Maybe an interim solution for an interim situation? |
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