Why i will support bigger blocks - and you should too

[jonald_fyookball]

if Hearn hadn't previously undermined his credibility by advocating whitelisting, perhaps this debate would be over and Everyone would be on Gavin's side with XT.

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[fryarminer]

First of all, if miners can chose not to include transactions now, what will stop them from not including spam transactions in bigger blocks?

Second, what will stop them from not including transactions that do not have sufficient fees?

Third, could you imagine how well Visa would be used if you were told you could only swipe your card three or four times a day and not in the same hour?

People who are screaming to not raise the block size cap now, will be the first to complain when their transactions don't fit on blocks anymore and they have to take a number and wait.

[BillyBobZorton]

First of all, if miners can chose not to include transactions now, what will stop them from not including spam transactions in bigger blocks?

Second, what will stop them from not including transactions that do not have sufficient fees?

Third, could you imagine how well Visa would be used if you were told you could only swipe your card three or four times a day and not in the same hour?

People who are screaming to not raise the block size cap now, will be the first to complain when their transactions don't fit on blocks anymore and they have to take a number and wait.

Where does it say miners can now drop transactions with XT? as far as I know miners don't have any say on this, it's all in the protocol and the consensus algorithm, not some miner's will to say this transaction goes through and this doesn't that would indeed suck.

[fryarminer]

First of all, if miners can chose not to include transactions now, what will stop them from not including spam transactions in bigger blocks?

Second, what will stop them from not including transactions that do not have sufficient fees?

Third, could you imagine how well Visa would be used if you were told you could only swipe your card three or four times a day and not in the same hour?

People who are screaming to not raise the block size cap now, will be the first to complain when their transactions don't fit on blocks anymore and they have to take a number and wait.

Where does it say miners can now drop transactions with XT? as far as I know miners don't have any say on this, it's all in the protocol and the consensus algorithm, not some miner's will to say this transaction goes through and this doesn't that would indeed suck.

Ok maybe I'm wrong. But I was of the understanding that miners have always had the choice to not include transactions in blocks.

This incidentally keeps the freedom of bitcoin free. Nobody is putting restrictions one way or another.

[LiteCoinGuy]

if Hearn hadn't previously undermined his credibility by advocating whitelisting, perhaps this debate would be over and Everyone would be on Gavin's side with XT.

that could be true. but only for people who dont see the things from a neutral perspective. Mike was wrong back then but here (bigger blocks) he is right.

[meono]

First of all, if miners can chose not to include transactions now, what will stop them from not including spam transactions in bigger blocks?

Second, what will stop them from not including transactions that do not have sufficient fees?

Third, could you imagine how well Visa would be used if you were told you could only swipe your card three or four times a day and not in the same hour?

People who are screaming to not raise the block size cap now, will be the first to complain when their transactions don't fit on blocks anymore and they have to take a number and wait.

Where does it say miners can now drop transactions with XT? as far as I know miners don't have any say on this, it's all in the protocol and the consensus algorithm, not some miner's will to say this transaction goes through and this doesn't that would indeed suck.

Ok maybe I'm wrong. But I was of the understanding that miners have always had the choice to not include transactions in blocks.

This incidentally keeps the freedom of bitcoin free. Nobody is putting restrictions one way or another.

You're not wrong. And dont listen to the idiot.

Miners have their choice of include txs or not.

It has always been that way.

[meono]

if Hearn hadn't previously undermined his credibility by advocating whitelisting, perhaps this debate would be over and Everyone would be on Gavin's side with XT.

that could be true. but only for people who dont see the things from a neutral perspective. Mike was wrong back then but here (bigger blocks) he is right.

I agree . I dont support white listing at all. And never will.

However i think they like to bring that up so they can justify their censorship. When all it comes down to is : they dont like the fact that this fork is NOT being led by bitcoin core devs.

[medUSA]

When all it comes down to is : they dont like the fact that this fork is NOT being led by bitcoin core devs.

I don't like it either. I believe users and miners want to stick with Core given a choice. I would very much prefer Core devs to initiate "bigger blocks" fork, but they were rejecting it because they believe it's not a long term solution, and for some reason, they don't want to implement this "quick fix" to buy time while they work out this "long term solution". Now XT has given each of us a voice and it's everyone's own decision to vote. I am waiting for developments and I will vote when the time comes.

[meono]

When all it comes down to is : they dont like the fact that this fork is NOT being led by bitcoin core devs.

I don't like it either. I believe users and miners want to stick with Core given a choice. I would very much prefer Core devs to initiate "bigger blocks" fork, but they were rejecting it because they believe it's not a long term solution, and for some reason, they don't want to implement this "quick fix" to buy time while they work out this "long term solution". Now XT has given each of us a voice and it's everyone's own decision to vote. I am waiting for developments and I will vote when the time comes.

They want to promote Blockstream. And some of the core devs are actually also Blockstream devs. So they behave like a bunch of children hold the community hostage.

Hey if the economic majority wants to support bigger blocks, then this "fork" is inevitable. Censoring this would only make them look worse.

[jonald_fyookball]

When all it comes down to is : they dont like the fact that this fork is NOT being led by bitcoin core devs.

I don't like it either. I believe users and miners want to stick with Core given a choice. I would very much prefer Core devs to initiate "bigger blocks" fork, but they were rejecting it because they believe it's not a long term solution, and for some reason, they don't want to implement this "quick fix" to buy time while they work out this "long term solution". Now XT has given each of us a voice and it's everyone's own decision to vote. I am waiting for developments and I will vote when the time comes.

I think we are getting to the heart of the matter here.  Hearn (the wrong guy) is right and the usual right guys are wrong.  It really would be nice to see this led by the core devs.  Why Gavin chose to associate with Hearn, I have no idea, given the context.  It would be better if he had done it alone, at least for me.

Can't someone else besides Hearn make a fork that we can get behind?

[n2004al]

I see that most of the important actors of cryptocurrency not only accept but push over the increase of blocks. I see and i read to much about the importance of such increment. But i don't understand why all those actors don't be in one mind about how, why and when this is it will be possible to be a reality. For this i think it is important to discuss. Why don't increase? Which are the factors which impedes such increase and what to do to eliminate those? Can anyone answer to this simple question? Can anyone open a thread to discuss about this?

[LiteCoinGuy]

Gavin on reddit:

As people have said in the comments, rolling out a change to the maximum block size takes months.

We're already hitting the limit sometimes when miners get unlucky and don't find many blocks; that will just get increasingly worse, and fees will rise.

That's not a disaster-- Bitcoin will survive. But it means it is less expensive for an attacker to drive up fees unpredictably (wait until the memory pool is backed up because miners have been unlucky, then send a few megabytes of higher-than-average-fee transactions).

It means fees are higher for users than they should be, but miners will get less overall revenue from fees (because there are fewer transactions than there should be), so the network will be a little less secure. In economic terms, artificially limiting the block size results in deadweight losses for both miners and users.

It means lower-value transactions are not economical to do on the blockchain, so they're driven to more centralized off-chain solutions (like trusted wallets or, eventually, Lightning hubs).

All of the above make me think that scaling up by increasing the maximum block size is urgent, and why it has been at the top of my priority list since January.

To be clear: I think the Lightning network is a great idea, and I fully support the changes to Bitcoin needed to support it.

It is not either/or, we should do "all of the above."



https://de.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3gz9ut/do_the_stress_tests_show_that_gavin_was_wrong/

[timothythomas]

i will support the size increase i want to see bitcoin grow and not die coz of suffocation

[lottery248]

what about if someone did a stress test?
what about if the bitcoin popularity wasn't gradually increasing?
what about the transaction flooding?
i knew exactly what bitcoin XT used to, if people gave up from using the full node wallet, less legitimacy of security, mining could only help verifying transactions, if someone controlled 51% of the full node wallet, bitcoin would be ended up with centralisation. i could support up to 16 mb blocks, it would be explicitly sufficient unless we had millions of users, plus storage wastes energy.
we need a sustainable and decentralised currency, unless you have evidence to support "how bitcoin XT could sustain bitcoin and its protocol", otherwise, please consider if you were kidnapped by the XT developers.

[bitcoinmasterlord]

Um... it would make these spam attacks stop instantly at least. These spammers might be very well miners, a corporation of them maybe, and they seem to test out the best way to raise the fees permanently that way. At the moment they try to spam often so that nobody knows if he has to take a high fee or not. Raising the fee overall to prevent risk at the end.

The spam attacks will stop once we reach a acceptable level of fee's. Currently it's possible to make transactions without paying any fees. That is not good for Bitcoin as it makes it easy to bloat the blockchain.

You sound like you know that this is the case. I fear the spam attacks are done for that really. What a mess. We wanted to create a currency that is not controlled and now some greedy bast... can force the transaction fee higher.

I don't know where you got the idea from that bitcoin doesn't scale. The max block size is arbitrary from the start. Im not sure what you speak about.

Please explain how the block size will scale with a hard fork increasing the block size to 8MB?

Bitcoin without a block size limit could handle everything. Only because this limit was implemented we became problems. We easily could fight the "bloating" by implementing output related fees.

So we need to wait for a third party network to make bitcoin work. Seriously?

Really... its no wonder that so many bitcoiners think that the lightning network bitcoin core developers have their own agenda in this.

And what dangerous fork? Are you spreading FUD here?

So you are saying Bitcoin doesn't work now? I wonder who is spreading the FUD now?

What are you speaking about? Where did i wrote something like that? You were the one who claimed we would need an additional network so that bitcoin could become a high fee transaction system. I would not be surprised if you actually would be one of these devs with goal conflict.

[bitcoinmasterlord]

Um... it would make these spam attacks stop instantly at least. These spammers might be very well miners, a corporation of them maybe, and they seem to test out the best way to raise the fees permanently that way. At the moment they try to spam often so that nobody knows if he has to take a high fee or not. Raising the fee overall to prevent risk at the end.

The spam attacks will stop once we reach a acceptable level of fee's. Currently it's possible to make transactions without paying any fees. That is not good for Bitcoin as it makes it easy to bloat the blockchain.

I don't know where you got the idea from that bitcoin doesn't scale. The max block size is arbitrary from the start. Im not sure what you speak about.

Please explain how the block size will scale with a hard fork increasing the block size to 8MB?

So we need to wait for a third party network to make bitcoin work. Seriously?

Really... its no wonder that so many bitcoiners think that the lightning network bitcoin core developers have their own agenda in this.

And what dangerous fork? Are you spreading FUD here?

So you are saying Bitcoin doesn't work now? I wonder who is spreading the FUD now?

The idea is incremental of 8mb in synchrony with moore's law. This way we should be able to scale up as far as we need to.

Though i wonder why having a bottle neck at all. I mean when spammers want to spam then they will do so anyway. They could either spam 1MB blocks or 8MB ones. But 8MB ones would be more expensive so less rewarding. So why not simply removing the blocklimit completely? I mean there is no reason to spam then anymore. The minimum fee would be sufficient. And as long as the blocks aren't filled completely all advertising spam will go through anyway.

I think the limit can be dropped. That's something we learned from the spamming.

The fees must stay low tho.. im not saying they shouldn't be a bit higher if needed, but definitely they must feel LOW or else it will be a mass failure.

Exactly. Bitcoin with a high fee reward with nowadays amount of transactions would mean bitcoin is dead. I can't believe how shortsighted some people are only because they run their own agenda. Don't they realize that their business model is based on bitcoin completely too?

[bitcoinmasterlord]

I trust the original, unhindered Bitcoin implementation to scale far better than an artificially crippled implementation with a new bit bolted on top. 

The original? Aren't we running the original now?

He means the original without the artificial 1MB block size limit.

Saying you support a 1MB limit and the lightning network is like saying you want to limit the amount of material you can pass in a bowel movement and fit a colostomy bag to deal with the rest because that's somehow better. 

Get rid of the artificial bottleneck and let nature take its course.

That's a bad analogy. We need to have limits otherwise the block chain would grow so massive that most people would not be able to run full nodes.
And what's the point of risking that when we can have third party solutions?

Why using privately run third party solutions when we have the original. Only because some greedy persons want to break bitcoin for their own good doesn't mean that all bitcoiners will support them.

And about massive block chain grow do you speak? You speak like the blocks are full constantly. They aren't. And spamming only works because the fees are increasing then. So how do you get the idea that there would be an uncontrolled grow without a block size limit? Where should that come from suddenly?

It does not solve anything? That is a understatement. 8 MB blocks should help us gain the needed time. Who knows exactly when something like the lightning network or sidechains are going to be fully functional.
The developers aren't really saying much about a timeline. Bigger blocks will be needed in the future even with other solutions. Why should we wait when it is much easier to do the fork now?
The fork is not dangerous at all if we use the proper consensus rules.

What needed time?
I haven't noticed that we have any urgent issues with full blocks?
If there are full blocks the market will adapt and either pay higher fees or develop alternatives like lightning network.

And so what if 90% thinks we should have bigger blocks? I still don't think it's the best possible option.
That's like saying just because the majority of the people voted for Obama makes him the best possible president.

Maybe the market don't want to be forced using lightning networks?

And this adaption... it has led to enough confusion already. Didn't you read all the threads about newbies and even established members that got their transaction stuck because of spamming suddenly started? That surely will help bitcoin adoption.

About the options... that's mostly right. We often enough only have the choice to use the less worst option. Because the best option, that you think it is, doesn't have the needed support yet.

[bitcoinmasterlord]

Are the core devs even doing anything about this?  Or is Gavin the only one being pro active?  Is the core devs policy to wait until the mempool is permanently backlogged then rush out a fix?

Core developers are divided in two parties. One part will increase blocks and the other part won't. The first part will develop bitcoin-xt, in case bitcoin-qt doesn't get updated, the second part of developers want to push the lighning network. They will earn money when bitcoin is crippled. Simple as that.

[Lauda]

Are the core devs even doing anything about this?  Or is Gavin the only one being pro active?  Is the core devs policy to wait until the mempool is permanently backlogged then rush out a fix?

FUD.

How about you read BIP100 and BIP102 before spreading wrong information around here. People tend to take it seriously without doing their own research. Essentially the core developers are also planing to increase the limit however their approach is different and not related to XT.
As I've stated this multiple times: supporting bigger blocks does not necessarily mean that you support XT. I for one, support bigger blocks but do not support XT nor Mike Hearn at all and neither should you.

BIP 100:

Protocol changes proposed:
Hard fork to remove 1MB block size limit.
Simultaneously, add a new soft fork limit of 2MB.
Schedule the hard fork on testnet for September 1, 2015.
Schedule the hard fork on bitcoin main chain for December 11, 2015.
Default miner block size becomes 1MB (easily changeable by miner at any time, as today).
Changing the 2MB limit is accomplished in a manner similar to BIP 34, a one­way lock­in upgrade with a 12,000 block (3 month) threshold.

[forevernoob]

Bitcoin without a block size limit could handle everything. Only because this limit was implemented we became problems. We easily could fight the "bloating" by implementing output related fees.

According to the chart there is still a limit when block size reaches 8GB, so it still doesn't scale...

So you are saying Bitcoin doesn't work now? I wonder who is spreading the FUD now?

What are you speaking about? Where did i wrote something like that? You were the one who claimed we would need an additional network so that bitcoin could become a high fee transaction system. I would not be surprised if you actually would be one of these devs with goal conflict.

I believe that if there is demand for more transactions the market will find a way to deal with it. Either by a increase of fees or something like the lightning network.
I never said "we need the lightning network". 

You said this:

So we need to wait for a third party network to make bitcoin work. Seriously? 

I interpret that as you don't think Bitcoin is working properly now?

Why using privately run third party solutions when we have the original. Only because some greedy persons want to break bitcoin for their own good doesn't mean that all bitcoiners will support them.

And about massive block chain grow do you speak? You speak like the blocks are full constantly. They aren't. And spamming only works because the fees are increasing then. So how do you get the idea that there would be an uncontrolled grow without a block size limit? Where should that come from suddenly?

I never claimed that the blocks will be full constantly, but obviously the block chain will increase in size since people will be able to make transactions without fees.

Maybe the market don't want to be forced using lightning networks?

And this adaption... it has led to enough confusion already. Didn't you read all the threads about newbies and even established members that got their transaction stuck because of spamming suddenly started? That surely will help bitcoin adoption.

About the options... that's mostly right. We often enough only have the choice to use the less worst option. Because the best option, that you think it is, doesn't have the needed support yet.

If you don't like the lightning network feel free to deveolpe a better alternative. The market won't force you to use lightning network.
And people complaining about transactions getting stuck don't know how bitcoin works - they are under the impression that they should be able to use bitcoin without any fees.
Fortunately it seems like they have adapted and increased their fees since I don't see any people complaining now.