Bigger blocks coming in release 0.11

[Mikestang]

Get ready, it's coming...

http://gavinandresen.ninja/time-to-roll-out-bigger-blocks

I’m going to submit a pull request to the 0.11 release of Bitcoin Core that will allow miners to create blocks bigger than one megabyte, starting a little less than a year from now.

[bittyfree]

For what purpose is the bigger block? Why is there a need for a 1 megabyte block, the blockchain works fine like now?
Blocks only get big when there are many transaction in them, so how could a miner create a bigger block without that much transactions

[sdmathis]

Okay. This may be a stupid question, but I'm going to ask anyway. Are bigger blocks good or bad? And why would they be good or bad?

[Mikestang]

It's better to be proactive than reactive, there's a ton of discussion about the "why" already out there.

[dasource]

About time! Anyone whining about this need to get their marbles examined.

[Meuh6879]

increase block size may injured bitcoin node ... because of the pollution of trading (high trading).
people that need speed ... must build sidechain (or offchain strategy like bitpay ou coinbase).

i don't agree to increase block size except if it has a limitation ... (like 10MB).

[sdmathis]

Okay. This may be a stupid question, but I'm going to ask anyway. Are bigger blocks good or bad? And why would they be good or bad?

Bigger blocks allow more transactions per block, if the size stays at 1mb you may make a transaction and instead of the 10 minute standard you may be queued for the next block so it will be longer for any confirmations to hit, it does make the blockchain bigger but only by the size used per block, so it will scale slowly.

That makes sense. Thank you for answering my question.

[spazzdla]

About time! Anyone whining about this need to get their marbles examined.

The blockchain size is already turning into a serious problem...  Don't speak with such a vicious tone when you don't know what you are talking about.

[manselr]

Okay. This may be a stupid question, but I'm going to ask anyway. Are bigger blocks good or bad? And why would they be good or bad?

When the time comes, if we want to take over the world (that's having the volume of transactions of say VISA, or all of them combined -mastercard, paypal, etc etc- we'll need a bigger block size to not saturate the blockchain. The problem is, as far as im concerned it would require a fork, so 2 Bitcoins would exist if some of the stuck up idiot purists don't abandon the 1MB blockchain. Correct me if im wrong.

[BCwinning]

except the size was already ok before gavin changed it once already, now it's being changed again and will need to be again down the road instead of allowing the network to decide (miners) he's taken it upon himself to set hardcoded limits where there was none originally.

[Amph]

but my question is why they choose 20mb as the next size? 5 or 10 weren't enough? did he tested those value?

[RodeoX]

but my question is why they choose 20mb as the next size? 5 or 10 weren't enough? did he test those value?

If we see a mainstream adoption and a large rise in users no 5 or 10 may not be a enough and we would have to fork quickly. Think if for some reason Bitcoin blows up (maybe a stupid celebrity starts using bitcoin like Kayne) and we get 100k users in one day, with more jumping on the band wagon after and they all start trying it out, blocks would start to fill quickly.

I think that's right. It could be 5 or 10, but we don't want to have to do this every year.

[lontivero]

The real block size is up to the miners. The protocol (wired in the bitcoin reference implementation) can suggest a MAX_SIZE and miners can agree on that. However, they can mine blocks with size between [MIN_SIZE, MAX_SIZE] and that means they can include any number of transactions per block always they respect the agreed MAX_SIZE. Note that it is possible to mine blocks with zero transactions for example.

IMO there is an incentive to keep the block size small because it makes the space in them scarce, and we know what happen when something is scarce. Given the block size is 1MB, if your transaction requires 60kb you have to pay more fee than if your transaction is 800bytes. So, bigger blocks could reduce the fees but at the same time miner are allowed to introduce more transactions per block, what means more fees for them.

I really don't fully understand all the implications around this change because even when the current block MAX_SIZE is 1 MB, miners don't mine 1MB blocks. In fact, I read that one of the most common sizes is around 731kb. Clearly, for miners is not the same to broadcast to the network 1MB than 20MB because if I mine a 20MB block and, at the same time, other miner mines a 200Kb block, its block will spread faster than the mine one.

So, I don't see the incentive for miners now. What I mean is that currently they earn more with the 12.5 bitcoins that the protocol gives them that with the transactions fee and for that reason I don't know if more transactions per block (more fees) worth the risk.
      

[Klestin]

About time! Anyone whining about this need to get their marbles examined.

The blockchain size is already turning into a serious problem...  Don't speak with such a vicious tone when you don't know what you are talking about.

Of course it isn't.  If you don't want to store the full chain, run an SPV client.  If you do: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST4000DM000.  Pruning is coming, so the storage "issue" will soon vanish completely.

Increasing the max block size does not mean that all blocks will increase in size - they'll increase when they need to.  Does anyone actually take the position that it is better to let transactions back up than to marginally increase the incremental chain size?

[Meuh6879]

If 20MB block size comes with pruning feature, i'm OK for this. 
i want a counterparty ... 

[Moebius327]

Finally it was about time!

[Hazir]

About time! Anyone whining about this need to get their marbles examined.

The blockchain size is already turning into a serious problem...  Don't speak with such a vicious tone when you don't know what you are talking about.

BlockChain is  already almost 40 GB of size, but this change is inevitable. There is no problem with our current terabyte hard disks to storage it. And you dont have to run full node wallet like Bitcoin Core at all.
Electrum or MultiBit will do just fine.

[BitUsher]

Okay. This may be a stupid question, but I'm going to ask anyway. Are bigger blocks good or bad? And why would they be good or bad?

Right now certain projects like Lighthouse decentralized crowdfunding are limited to 684 pledges (unusually low compared to kickstarter) and we can only process 4-7 transactions per second which isn't enough.

We are hitting the block limit more often these days and it is only going to get worse.

[dasource]

About time! Anyone whining about this need to get their marbles examined.

The blockchain size is already turning into a serious problem...  Don't speak with such a vicious tone when you don't know what you are talking about.

What is a serious problem already? The one who does not know what he/she is talking about is you ....

Blind following the blind going on!

[BitUsher]

For what purpose is the bigger block? Why is there a need for a 1 megabyte block, the blockchain works fine like now?
Blocks only get big when there are many transaction in them, so how could a miner create a bigger block without that much transactions

Increasing the limit won't create bigger blocks on average, but allow for it to happen if it is needed. If we stay at 3-4 tps average the change will have no effect outside of occasionally allowing a 2MB block through because of a large fundraiser through lighthouse or a temporary spike in transactions.

There will likely be a middle ground found because most of the other core developers are wary of 20MB being needed. Perhaps if we give some other projects a bit of time to be released like the lightning network we won't need a 20MB limit.