Time to roll out bigger blocks

[BIT-Sharon]

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.

I will be writing a series of blog posts, each addressing one argument against raising the maximum block size, or against scheduling a raise right now. These are the objections I plan on writing about; please send me an email (gavinandresen@gmail.com) if I am missing any arguments for why one megabyte is the best size for Bitcoin blocks over the next few years.


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

[Chef Ramsay]

Are you taking on a new persona these days or is Gavin giving up his account for something else? True story

[DooMAD]

I'm assuming the text was just copy/pasta'd without using [quote] tags.  But yep, needs to happen soon, despite what the vocal minority claim.  The fallout from full blocks is negative publicity we don't need right now.  This forum would be inundated with posts whining about confirmation times if the limit isn't raised.

[BIT-Sharon]

When Bitcoin appeared in 2009, the capacity of each block of 10 minutes was 32mb which can be conversed to be 200tps, transactions per second. However, after that, the founder of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto decreases the limitation to be 1 mb in order to prevent system to be attacked. From then on, the system of Bitcoin can deal with 7tps at most. By comparison with 1000tps of Alipay and 4000tps of VISA, it is little.

[MicroGuy]

I think Bitcoin needs more radical development. This block adjustment needs to be done during the next radical update.

Here's an idea. Take 1% of each block reward and send it to an address controlled by the Bitcoin Foundation. This would provide revenue for development, branding, lobbying, etc. Alternatively, you can send them a % of the transaction fees. Call it a network fee.. whatever.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, but we need change. They say if it's broken don't fix it, but bitcoin is broken.

Where is Satoshi when you really need him? Oh... that's right he vanished with over 1 million bitcoins. Looks like we need someone else to step up to the plate. I'm available. PM me with offers. 

[Lauda]

I think Bitcoin needs more radical development. This block adjustment needs to be done during the next radical update.

Here's an idea. Take 1% of each block reward and send it to an address controlled by the Bitcoin Foundation. This would provide revenue for development, branding, lobbying, etc. Alternatively, you can send them a % of the transaction fees. Call it a network fee.. whatever.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, but we need change. They say if it's broken don't fix it, but bitcoin is broken.

Where is Satoshi when you really need him? Oh... that's right he vanished with over 1 million bitcoins. Looks like we need someone else to step up to the plate. I'm available. PM me with offers. 

This doesn't even make sense at all. How is this relevant to bigger blocks?
Are you trying to say that there are not enough funds for the developers right now? I'm not going to give a single cent to the Foundation. Everyone should know by now that a good portion of that money was spent on personal affairs of the top members.

[solex]

When Bitcoin appeared in 2009, the capacity of each block of 10 minutes was 32mb which can be conversed to be 200tps, transactions per second. However, after that, the founder of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto decreases the limitation to be 1 mb in order to prevent system to be attacked. From then on, the system of Bitcoin can deal with 7tps at most. By comparison with 1000tps of Alipay and 4000tps of VISA, it is little.

It's not even near 7tps, more like 2.7tps. A couple of months ago I sampled six days worth of blocks which were >90% full.

Block_height Block_time      Size_KB Num_Tx Fee_BTC
341192   31/01/2015_7:10    976.54    2518   0.3303735  
341226   31/01/2015_13:01   903.09   1106   0.15922165
341305   1/02/2015_1:05      959.89   1320   0.20086461
341313   1/02/2015_2:19      912.48     693   0.2979134
341350   1/02/2015_7:49      975.67   1735   0.263689
341505   2/02/2015_5:11      976.5       735   0.16244257
341517   2/02/2015_7:02      947.72     746   0.14308729
341519   2/02/2015_7:36      957.16     482   0.13242593
341520   2/02/2015_8:02      976.45   1964   0.28018485
341525   2/02/2015_8:35      973.77     844   0.187877
341737   3/02/2015_19:00    976.49   1291   0.18828618
341765   4/02/2015_1:23      976.49   2549   0.35075577
341773   4/02/2015_2:45      941.58   1635   0.22893775
341794   4/02/2015_6:05      976.46   2380   0.31873266
341798   4/02/2015_6:50      971.04   1759   0.24739191
341810   4/02/2015_8:30      976.17   1705   0.25575189
341944   5/02/2015_4:08      976.54   2268   0.30628975
341951   5/02/2015_5:35      974.37   1635   0.23624007
341963   5/02/2015_7:53      976.46   1911   0.27444743
341965   5/02/2015_8:33      976.52   2105   0.2951799  
341967   5/02/2015_9:24      973.82   2675   0.33440304

Average block size = 965KB
Average number of tx = 1622 (or approximately 2.7 tps)
Average block total fee = 0.25 BTC

The significant finding is that 20MB is a bit of a magic number for the long-term goal of getting fees towards replacing block rewards for miners.
20MB blocks would offer 54 tps and an average total fee per block of 5 BTC (based on this evidence) which means that fees would be comparable with the reward once the average block size hits 20MB and the reward is down to 6.25 BTC (within 6 years time).

[louise123]

I think Bitcoin needs more radical development. This block adjustment needs to be done during the next radical update.

Here's an idea. Take 1% of each block reward and send it to an address controlled by the Bitcoin Foundation. This would provide revenue for development, branding, lobbying, etc. Alternatively, you can send them a % of the transaction fees. Call it a network fee.. whatever.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, but we need change. They say if it's broken don't fix it, but bitcoin is broken.

Where is Satoshi when you really need him? Oh... that's right he vanished with over 1 million bitcoins. Looks like we need someone else to step up to the plate. I'm available. PM me with offers. 

So are you going to leave it broken?

Don't you mean: "If it ain't broken, don't try to fix it."

[louise123]

I think Bitcoin needs more radical development. This block adjustment needs to be done during the next radical update.

Here's an idea. Take 1% of each block reward and send it to an address controlled by the Bitcoin Foundation. This would provide revenue for development, branding, lobbying, etc. Alternatively, you can send them a % of the transaction fees. Call it a network fee.. whatever.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, but we need change. They say if it's broken don't fix it, but bitcoin is broken.

Where is Satoshi when you really need him? Oh... that's right he vanished with over 1 million bitcoins. Looks like we need someone else to step up to the plate. I'm available. PM me with offers. 

This doesn't even make sense at all. How is this relevant to bigger blocks?
Are you trying to say that there are not enough funds for the developers right now? I'm not going to give a single cent to the Foundation. Everyone should know by now that a good portion of that money was spent on personal affairs of the top members.

You are talking about Brock Pierce and his "adventures", aren't you?
Or is there someone else I haven't heard about yet?

[Lauda]

You are talking about Brock Pierce and his "adventures", aren't you?
Or is there someone else I haven't heard about yet?

Yes. There are probably others that we don't know about. Essentially while trying to make a decentralized way of payments/transfer of value we should not be trying to make a centralized organization that funds it all.
If we take everything in consideration, it is about time that the foundation gets disbanded. Yes, they've had their good deeds in the past, but it is time.

[medUSA]

Here's an idea. Take 1% of each block reward and send it to an address controlled by the Bitcoin Foundation. This would provide revenue for development, branding, lobbying, etc. Alternatively, you can send them a % of the transaction fees. Call it a network fee.. whatever.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, but we need change. They say if it's broken don't fix it, but bitcoin is broken.

Miners and pools will not be keen on the 1% block reward tax to TBF, and this fork will likely not be accepted. I agree we do need change. The larger blocks is a good solution IMO. It raises the limit, will not impose any limitations to the current mining operations, while scaling the potential transactions rate.

The unconfirmed transaction pool is getting bigger and confirmations much slower than about one year ago. It is not "broken" now, but will be soon if we don't do anything.

[solex]

The unconfirmed transaction pool is getting bigger and confirmations much slower than about one year ago. It is not "broken" now, but will be soon if we don't do anything.

Do you have stats on that, or is it anecdotal?

[vpitcher07]

Here's an idea. Take 1% of each block reward and send it to an address controlled by the Bitcoin Foundation. This would provide revenue for development, branding, lobbying, etc. Alternatively, you can send them a % of the transaction fees. Call it a network fee.. whatever.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, but we need change. They say if it's broken don't fix it, but bitcoin is broken.

Miners and pools will not be keen on the 1% block reward tax to TBF, and this fork will likely not be accepted. I agree we do need change. The larger blocks is a good solution IMO. It raises the limit, will not impose any limitations to the current mining operations, while scaling the potential transactions rate.

The unconfirmed transaction pool is getting bigger and confirmations much slower than about one year ago. It is not "broken" now, but will be soon if we don't do anything.

I completely agree. There will NEVER be a consensus to send a tax to ANYONE especially TBF. If they hard fork to implement a "tax" bitcoin is done.

[DooMAD]

You are talking about Brock Pierce and his "adventures", aren't you?
Or is there someone else I haven't heard about yet?

Yes. There are probably others that we don't know about. Essentially while trying to make a decentralized way of payments/transfer of value we should not be trying to make a centralized organization that funds it all.
If we take everything in consideration, it is about time that the foundation gets disbanded. Yes, they've had their good deeds in the past, but it is time.

I've been quite critical of TBF in the past, but as it's now under new leadership, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.  Hopefully they are more open and transparent in their dealings and win back some credibility.  If, however, we see more of the same and no change for the better, then yes, enough is enough.  I think they understand that they won't get another chance to prove themselves reputable, so they need to get it right this time. 

[fryarminer]

I think Bitcoin needs more radical development. This block adjustment needs to be done during the next radical update.

Here's an idea. Take 1% of each block reward and send it to an address controlled by the Bitcoin Foundation. This would provide revenue for development, branding, lobbying, etc. Alternatively, you can send them a % of the transaction fees. Call it a network fee.. whatever.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, but we need change. They say if it's broken don't fix it, but bitcoin is broken.

Where is Satoshi when you really need him? Oh... that's right he vanished with over 1 million bitcoins. Looks like we need someone else to step up to the plate. I'm available. PM me with offers. 

You've got to be kidding me. Taxes to the Bitcoin Foundation? Here's a thought... Let's go back to using dollars!

[shorena]

The unconfirmed transaction pool is getting bigger and confirmations much slower than about one year ago. It is not "broken" now, but will be soon if we don't do anything.

Do you have stats on that, or is it anecdotal?

The pool of unconfirmed transactions does not seem to get bigger, at least not on my node (unmodded 0.10.0). They probably mixed it up with the UTXO set -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1055594.0

[ACCTseller]

I think Bitcoin needs more radical development. This block adjustment needs to be done during the next radical update.

Here's an idea. Take 1% of each block reward and send it to an address controlled by the Bitcoin Foundation. This would provide revenue for development, branding, lobbying, etc. Alternatively, you can send them a % of the transaction fees. Call it a network fee.. whatever.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, but we need change. They say if it's broken don't fix it, but bitcoin is broken.

I think this is a really bad idea for a number of reasons. First of all this would centralize Bitcoin as the one entity (TBF) would be receiving all of the funding for Bitcoin development and most of the stakeholders in the Bitcoin world would likely be left out. Secondly, TFB has a very bad track record, has a history of poor transparency and probably more people then not would prefer TBF to be completely dismantled. And probably most importantly, the best people to finance the development of Bitcoin would be businesses and people who have a financial interest in seeing bitcoin succeed over the long run - examples of this group would be companies like Bitpay, mining manufacturers, and companies that do large amounts of business denominated in bitcoin

[medUSA]

The unconfirmed transaction pool is getting bigger and confirmations much slower than about one year ago. It is not "broken" now, but will be soon if we don't do anything.

Do you have stats on that, or is it anecdotal?

It's based on my personal experience over the 2 years I have been using bitcoin. I do not measure "speed" based on minutes and hours. My impression is based on how many blocks have passed before transactions are confirmed (with a standard 0.0001 btc fee), and the number of unconfirmed transactions in the pool when confirmations are "slow".

[ArticMine]

I think Bitcoin needs more radical development. This block adjustment needs to be done during the next radical update.

Here's an idea. Take 1% of each block reward and send it to an address controlled by the Bitcoin Foundation. This would provide revenue for development, branding, lobbying, etc. Alternatively, you can send them a % of the transaction fees. Call it a network fee.. whatever.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, but we need change. They say if it's broken don't fix it, but bitcoin is broken.

I think this is a really bad idea for a number of reasons. First of all this would centralize Bitcoin as the one entity (TBF) would be receiving all of the funding for Bitcoin development and most of the stakeholders in the Bitcoin world would likely be left out. Secondly, TFB has a very bad track record, has a history of poor transparency and probably more people then not would prefer TBF to be completely dismantled. And probably most importantly, the best people to finance the development of Bitcoin would be businesses and people who have a financial interest in seeing bitcoin succeed over the long run - examples of this group would be companies like Bitpay, mining manufacturers, and companies that do large amounts of business denominated in bitcoin

I agree this is a terrible idea. By the way the now centralized TBF would likely become a MSB under US law and be subject to MSB regulations. There is a clear lesson here from what recently happened to Ripple. 

Now back to the thread topic. Increasing the 1MB blocksize limit is an absolute must for Bitcoin.

[shorena]

-snip-
I agree this is a terrible idea. By the way the now centralized TBF would likely become a MSB under US law and be subject to MSB regulations. There is a clear lesson here from what recently happened to Ripple. 

Now back to the thread topic. Increasing the 1MB blocksize limit is an absolute must for Bitcoin.

I agree that we need bigger blocks, but just increasing the limit to 20 MB will just push the problem into the future and not solve it. Eventually we will have a "20 MB is too small for a block" problem and the same discussions starts all over again. We also might run into the problem sooner than we expect, because bitcoin is not used uniformly through out the day. There are times with more TX and times with less TX, which is only natural as there are times when people sleep and time when they move their coins around. Thus "30% full on average" might actually be 80% full durring "prime time".

IMHO the blocksize limit and the propagation speed are closely linked. As long as miners have a strong incentive to miner small blocks due to higher orphaned rate for big blocks a raised limit alone might not solve the issue at hand.

[solex]

-snip-
I agree this is a terrible idea. By the way the now centralized TBF would likely become a MSB under US law and be subject to MSB regulations. There is a clear lesson here from what recently happened to Ripple. 

Now back to the thread topic. Increasing the 1MB blocksize limit is an absolute must for Bitcoin.

I agree that we need bigger blocks, but just increasing the limit to 20 MB will just push the problem into the future and not solve it. Eventually we will have a "20 MB is too small for a block" problem and the same discussions starts all over again. We also might run into the problem sooner than we expect, because bitcoin is not used uniformly through out the day. There are times with more TX and times with less TX, which is only natural as there are times when people sleep and time when they move their coins around. Thus "30% full on average" might actually be 80% full durring "prime time".

IMHO the blocksize limit and the propagation speed are closely linked. As long as miners have a strong incentive to miner small blocks due to higher orphaned rate for big blocks a raised limit alone might not solve the issue at hand.

Fortunately, IBLT decouples the link between block size and propagation speed, although at extra cpu cost, and is likely to be most effective when the average block size is >10MB at least, a number of years away yet.

[mercistheman]

How about less talk and get on with it... while we're at it reward the minors... why so difficult?

[shorena]

-snip-
Fortunately, IBLT decouples the link between block size and propagation speed, although at extra cpu cost, and is likely to be most effective when the average block size is >10MB at least, a number of years away yet.

Still, bigger blocks should come with IBLT or the higher limit will very likely be pointless. If miners still keep mining 750KByte blocks because they are afraid the longer propagation rate the raised blocksize limit is not going to change anything.

Regarding prime time. People already have to wait for confirmation even though they pay a fee durring certain periods. Timezone is CEST.

How about less talk and get on with it... while we're at it reward the minors... why so difficult?

What? How would you even determine that a certain wallet is under control by a minor?

[ACCTseller]

-snip-
I agree this is a terrible idea. By the way the now centralized TBF would likely become a MSB under US law and be subject to MSB regulations. There is a clear lesson here from what recently happened to Ripple. 

Now back to the thread topic. Increasing the 1MB blocksize limit is an absolute must for Bitcoin.

I agree that we need bigger blocks, but just increasing the limit to 20 MB will just push the problem into the future and not solve it. Eventually we will have a "20 MB is too small for a block" problem and the same discussions starts all over again. We also might run into the problem sooner than we expect, because bitcoin is not used uniformly through out the day. There are times with more TX and times with less TX, which is only natural as there are times when people sleep and time when they move their coins around. Thus "30% full on average" might actually be 80% full durring "prime time".

IMHO the blocksize limit and the propagation speed are closely linked. As long as miners have a strong incentive to miner small blocks due to higher orphaned rate for big blocks a raised limit alone might not solve the issue at hand.

Well kicking the "can down the road" is better then doing nothing.

I also think that there should be some level of anti-spam protections in place for found blocks to prevent spam like transactions from being included in blocks (or at least too many of them). I would also argue that there should be an increase in the number of off-chain transactions (this should primarily be for micro-transactions), as there are a number of legit reasons as to why people should trust third parties to process their transactions (primary that they already do)