5 Chinese mining pools propose 8MB block size

[SpanishSoldier]

We all agree on 8MB. Let's do it already!

You and me are none to say what the community agree on. It must be reflected through node voting.

[TransaDox]

There are real issues to discuss, but storage cost isn't one of them.

I don't think the "cost" is the main issue with storage either. I personally am annoyed at verification times for large blockchains but the real problem, as I see it, is all of these solutions to issues have the effect of centralising operation of the network into large, resource rich, enterprises.

We are already in the situation where miners are dedicated large organisations (some even have more than 51% hashing power) with enormous resources. The barrier to entry for mining is significant and has been for some time. We are also discussing large scale storage and having "Data Centers" that have the full block chain and everyone else having thin clients. This is centralising the network and at some point the miners will merge with the data centers and you will have a small number of large commercial organisations that can hold the entire network to ransom and dictate terms. Sound familiar?

[CryptoTrout]

well at least they are willing to negotiate.  8MB is fine for now, but im sure some of the venture capital behind bitcoin has other plans

[Lauda]

We all agree on 8MB. Let's do it already!

You and me are none to say what the community agree on. It must be reflected through node voting.

That would be true only if Gavin or Hearn don't contact anyone. The problem is that certain people have more power and they can likely get someone else to agree to their proposal. Besides Hearn has already stated that if the network doesn't have enough consensus they are going to introduce "checkpoint blocks" that are going to ignore the longest chain. This leads me to question their real intentions, however I'm fine with 8 MB blocks.

Although someone definitely needs to work on that pruning feature soon.

[Oscilson]

well at least they are willing to negotiate.  8MB is fine for now, but im sure some of the venture capital behind bitcoin has other plans

Maybe 8 MB is fine for the next 5 years if side chain becomes working.

[coins101]

...
Although someone definitely needs to work on that pruning feature soon.

I read somewhere that its due in Bitcoin Core 0.11

[cbeast]

well at least they are willing to negotiate.  8MB is fine for now, but im sure some of the venture capital behind bitcoin has other plans

Good point. Bitcoin should not be limited by special interests. It should be unlimited by general greed.

[bri912678]

well at least they are willing to negotiate.  8MB is fine for now, but im sure some of the venture capital behind bitcoin has other plans

Maybe 8 MB is fine for the next 5 years if side chain becomes working.

Gavin's latest update to BitcoinXT will increase the block size to 8MB, then double it every two years afterwards. It doesn't sound like he will be happy to update Bitcoin block size to 8MB and leave it a that for 5 years. It sounds like he wants to keep on increasing it after two years like with BitcoinXT.

[Oscilson]

well at least they are willing to negotiate.  8MB is fine for now, but im sure some of the venture capital behind bitcoin has other plans

Maybe 8 MB is fine for the next 5 years if side chain becomes working.

Gavin's latest update to BitcoinXT will increase the block size to 8MB, then double it every two years afterwards. It doesn't sound like he will be happy to update Bitcoin block size to 8MB and leave it a that for 5 years. It sounds like he wants to keep on increasing it after two years like with BitcoinXT.

Doubling every two years sounds good as it is similar to Moor's law trend. Original Moor's stated that computing ability doubles every 1.5 years . However, it slows down to about 2-3 years now. In 2012, the top of range AMD card had 2048 core, in 2015, the top card has 4096 core.

[Lauda]

Doubling every two years sounds good as it is similar to Moor's law trend. Original Moor's stated that computing ability doubles every 1.5 years . However, it slows down to about 2-3 years now. In 2012, the top of range AMD card had 2048 core, in 2015, the top card has 4096 core.

Here we go again. Stop spreading false information. In the original paper back in 1965 he described a doubling every year, later in 1975 he revised the forecast time to two years. This has nothing to do with the number of cores found within a GPU, it is about the number of transistors that should double approximately every 2 years.

I read somewhere that its due in Bitcoin Core 0.11

I've verified this, it was pushed back to 0.11.

Gavin's latest update to BitcoinXT will increase the block size to 8MB, then double it every two years afterwards. It doesn't sound like he will be happy to update Bitcoin block size to 8MB and leave it a that for 5 years. It sounds like he wants to keep on increasing it after two years like with BitcoinXT.

It doesn't just sound like he wants to do it, he is doing it. He has already pushed the changes to Github.

[Nagle]

Finally we have a resolution. The bosses of Bitcoin have spoken.

That's correct. The miners control Bitcoin. They determine what is a valid block. Those five mining companies have over 60% of the hash rate.

For the first time, they're now acting together to take control of the network. The original developers no longer matter.

[Minerkev]

Bitcoin is independent...now bitcoin is supposed to follow 5 chinese mining pools? Fail....
Even 8mb makes sense 

[QuestionAuthority]

Finally we have a resolution. The bosses of Bitcoin have spoken.

That's correct. The miners control Bitcoin. They determine what is a valid block. Those five mining companies have over 60% of the hash rate.

For the first time, they're now acting together to take control of the network. The original developers no longer matter.

Yeah, I know. I wasn't really joking. You've been here long enough but most of the newer people in this thread don't remember when Tycho at Deepbit held Bitcoin hostage over OP_EVAL/BIP16/17 and he was just one pool operator. Miners control the direction of Bitcoin more than anyone realizes.

[oblivi]

Finally we have a resolution. The bosses of Bitcoin have spoken.

That's correct. The miners control Bitcoin. They determine what is a valid block. Those five mining companies have over 60% of the hash rate.

For the first time, they're now acting together to take control of the network. The original developers no longer matter.

I wonder what Satoshi thinks about the fact a bunch of Chinese miners can decide the fate of BTC for coming decades. He predicted that mining would get more and more centralized tho, but not sure about development decisions.

[Oscilson]

I wonder what Satoshi thinks about the fact a bunch of Chinese miners can decide the fate of BTC for coming decades. He predicted that mining would get more and more centralized tho, but not sure about development decisions.

If the community follows the 8 MB block size, then it is not determined by the Chinese miners. It is the consensus of the community.

[Amph]

Bitcoin is independent...now bitcoin is supposed to follow 5 chinese mining pools? Fail....
Even 8mb makes sense  

well those 5 chinese mining pool don't belong to one entity, so bitcoin is indipendent from a single decision, but not from general consensus, for obvious reasons

don't bring the whole "mining is centralized" again, because it isn't

Finally we have a resolution. The bosses of Bitcoin have spoken.

That's correct. The miners control Bitcoin. They determine what is a valid block. Those five mining companies have over 60% of the hash rate.

For the first time, they're now acting together to take control of the network. The original developers no longer matter.

i don't think so, it is just that they find 8 mb the most valid choice, for their business, and since they are situated all in china, they will share similar goals

yet i still believe that something aginst the 51% problem must be done, something that will tell the network to not count the longest chain, but the more legit block, i don't know how it can be implemented

[turvarya]

Bitcoin is independent...now bitcoin is supposed to follow 5 chinese mining pools? Fail....
Even 8mb makes sense  

well those 5 chinese mining pool don't belong to one entity, so bitcoin is indipendent from a single decision, but not from general consensus, for obvious reasons

don't bring the whole "mining is centralized" again, because it isn't

Finally we have a resolution. The bosses of Bitcoin have spoken.

That's correct. The miners control Bitcoin. They determine what is a valid block. Those five mining companies have over 60% of the hash rate.

For the first time, they're now acting together to take control of the network. The original developers no longer matter.

i don't think so, it is just that they find 8 mb the most valid choice, for their business, and since they are situated all in china, they will share similar goals

yet i still believe that something aginst the 51% problem must be done, something that will tell the network to not count the longest chain, but the more legit block, i don't know how it can be implemented

What does make a block legit? There are rules on your full node, which define a legit block. If you don't agree to the rules of the miners, you just don't have to accept their blocks. Your full node can do that. That's called a fork.
The problem is, that if the miners have 60% of the hash rate, your network remains, best case, with 40% of the hash rate, which means it is less secure.

[Amph]

Bitcoin is independent...now bitcoin is supposed to follow 5 chinese mining pools? Fail....
Even 8mb makes sense  

well those 5 chinese mining pool don't belong to one entity, so bitcoin is indipendent from a single decision, but not from general consensus, for obvious reasons

don't bring the whole "mining is centralized" again, because it isn't

Finally we have a resolution. The bosses of Bitcoin have spoken.

That's correct. The miners control Bitcoin. They determine what is a valid block. Those five mining companies have over 60% of the hash rate.

For the first time, they're now acting together to take control of the network. The original developers no longer matter.

i don't think so, it is just that they find 8 mb the most valid choice, for their business, and since they are situated all in china, they will share similar goals

yet i still believe that something aginst the 51% problem must be done, something that will tell the network to not count the longest chain, but the more legit block, i don't know how it can be implemented

What does make a block legit? There are rules on your full node, which define a legit block. If you don't agree to the rules of the miners, you just don't have to accept their blocks. Your full node can do that. That's called a fork.
The problem is, that if the miners have 60% of the hash rate, your network remains, best case, with 40% of the hash rate, which means it is less secure.

less secure for what? for an attack like 51%... my whole point was that, if the longest chain does not matter anymore, than you not have to worry about who holds the largest percentage of the network

something like

"ignore a longer chain orphaning the current best chain if the sum(priorities of transactions included in new chain) is much less than sum(priorities of transactions in the part of the current best chain that would be orphaned)" would mean a 51% attacker would have to have both lots of hashing power AND lots of old, high-priority bitcoins to keep up a transaction-denial-of-service attack. And they'd pretty quickly run out of old, high-priority bitcoins and would be forced to either include other people's transactions or have their chain rejected."

but this is not the best solution

[Oscilson]

i don't think so, it is just that they find 8 mb the most valid choice, for their business, and since they are situated all in china, they will share similar goals

yet i still believe that something aginst the 51% problem must be done, something that will tell the network to not count the longest chain, but the more legit block, i don't know how it can be implemented

Maybe PoW+PoS.

When BTC becomes popular, most people will mine it, if they can make the cost low. Even (every) governments will mine it. So there will not be 51%

[TransaDox]

i don't think so, it is just that they find 8 mb the most valid choice, for their business, and since they are situated all in china, they will share similar goals

yet i still believe that something aginst the 51% problem must be done, something that will tell the network to not count the longest chain, but the more legit block, i don't know how it can be implemented

Maybe PoW+PoS.

When BTC becomes popular, most people will mine it, if they can make the cost low. Even (every) governments will mine it. So there will not be 51%

Most people won't mine it unless you go back to including the miner in the client and it doesn't use the CPU 100%. That would be a good solution if you can convince the virus scanner people that bitcoin mining software is not a virus anymore. Relying on unproven psychological incentives is a political solution not technological and I prefer relying on the maths.