BIP100, BIP 101 and XT nodes status

[VeritasSapere]

If you must support one of the BIPs, the only responsible approach is BIP102.

Of the official BIPs, that's least worthwhile.  For all the accusations of BIP101 being nothing more than kicking the can down the road, BIP102 is the same act, but barely giving it a nudge.  It would only mean revisiting the issue later.  I'd much prefer a dynamic cap that responds with increases or decreases as necessary.  How about this revision to upal's BIP1xx?

I don't think anyone is arguing that BIP101 is kicking the can down the road -- more so that it recklessly tries to map out the end of the road today in 2015. As I said, from an engineering perspective, the only responsible approach is an incremental one. Why are people so damn terrified of "revisiting the issue later?" That's not a legitimate excuse to push unsound solutions.

A dynamic option is really nice in theory, but unfortunately the algorithm is likely very easy to attack. I think much more work needs to be done to form a robust solution.

Because from an engineers perspective you are actually correct. However from the perspective of political philosophy this question becomes more complex and in my opinion, "revisiting the issue later?" is not as straight forward as it sounds. Sometimes different disciplines of thought give different answers to the same questions, I think that this has become a predominantly political question, which is why the answer should also be political in nature with a grounding in the technical realities in terms of what is possible.

[poeEDgar]

If you must support one of the BIPs, the only responsible approach is BIP102.

Of the official BIPs, that's least worthwhile.  For all the accusations of BIP101 being nothing more than kicking the can down the road, BIP102 is the same act, but barely giving it a nudge.  It would only mean revisiting the issue later.  I'd much prefer a dynamic cap that responds with increases or decreases as necessary.  How about this revision to upal's BIP1xx?

I don't think anyone is arguing that BIP101 is kicking the can down the road -- more so that it recklessly tries to map out the end of the road today in 2015. As I said, from an engineering perspective, the only responsible approach is an incremental one. Why are people so damn terrified of "revisiting the issue later?" That's not a legitimate excuse to push unsound solutions.

A dynamic option is really nice in theory, but unfortunately the algorithm is likely very easy to attack. I think much more work needs to be done to form a robust solution.

I don't see how it would be "very easy to attack".  In order to artificially manipulate the blocksize higher, you would have to sustain the attack over a long period, otherwise the blocksize would simply reduce again when you stop.  Perhaps look into it a little more closely before dismissing it so quickly.

I'm not dismissing it quickly. I have always viewed a dynamic solution as optimal, since we have to balance network security/bloat with growing capacity needs. It seems like an obvious answer. However...

One important thing to realize is that there are game theory implications here. It is not so simple as "it costs money to carry out an attack over time." One must consider that disincentives do not exist in a vacuum and cannot absolutely deter bad actors. What if these disincentives can be overcome? Here's a quick thought: Spam --> increase block size --> propagate bigger blocks to force high latency miners to SPV mine or otherwise orphan blocks --> mine invalid blocks, forcing the SPV miners onto an invalid chain --> publish all the valid blocks afterwards to reap all the mining rewards for yourself.

[poeEDgar]

Because from an engineers perspective you are actually correct. However from the perspective of political philosophy this question becomes more complex and in my opinion, "revisiting the issue later?" is not as straight forward as it sounds. Sometimes different disciplines of thought give different answers to the same questions, I think that this has become a predominantly political question, which is why the answer should also be political in nature with a grounding in the technical realities in terms of what is possible.

It was never predominantly a political question. This boils down to this: Are you willing to sacrifice network security and systemic robustness for some political goal? The answer should be an overwhelming "no." You can keep belaboring the point, but you'll have a hard time convincing anyone. We cannot move forward until we have a technically sound solution. There is little evidence to argue that BIP101 fits that description, and overwhelming evidence that it doesn't.

[brg444]

What   Where  

Bitshares, Ethereum, Dash. There are many more projects like this that are also very inovative.

You're joking right?

Bitcoin does not exist in a vacuum, you might be willing to spend $100 per transaction but I do not believe that the majority would do so.

The majority doesn't matter, I know your brain is poisoned with democracy but that's not how it works. In an economy the people holding the wealth, the rich, decide, whether you like it or not.

I agree that it is the economic majority that decides on consensus within the Bitcoin protocol, which is a form of democracy. I do not think that the economic majority would want to pay $100 per transaction that is my point.[/quote]

WTF!? NO!! Bro you need counselling, are you w/ the USG? Stop trying to stick democracy on everything you see. The economic majority is the 1% of Bitcoin that owns 75% of it. I'm sure they don't have issues with 100$ because they know better, they spend fiat, not bitcoins.

Especially considering that alternatives do exist where we can transact much cheaper and also with much more anonymity. Therefore it is not a irrational fear to think that Bitcoin should compete with any other alternatives in the real world.

Again I ask: What   Where   (okay maybe Monero for anonymity but their adaptive block size is still very much an experiment AFAIK)

Monero, Shadow Cash, Dash and many more.[/quote]

 

Most people do not even run full nodes today, and personally I would be able to continue to run my full nodes even with the larger blocksize. It would be better if most people would be reliant on SPV wallets, as opososed to being reliant on third parties, which is what would happen if we do not increase the block size, and if we did need third parties to transact on the Bitcoin blockchain directly what would even be the point in running a full node in the first place.

SPV relies on third parties and is not private! "Most people do not run full nodes today" is absolutely not a reason to make it harder than it is.

The point is to spread governance as wide as possible to people from all nationalities, creeds, regions and economic classes. I really don't care if a majority of people cannot directly access the Bitcoin blockchain, if we, the people, can hold control and enforce a sound monetary policy. Only banks will use it for all I care. At that point they'll be software companies competing on the open market with open source solutions.

[VeritasSapere]

Because from an engineers perspective you are actually correct. However from the perspective of political philosophy this question becomes more complex and in my opinion, "revisiting the issue later?" is not as straight forward as it sounds. Sometimes different disciplines of thought give different answers to the same questions, I think that this has become a predominantly political question, which is why the answer should also be political in nature with a grounding in the technical realities in terms of what is possible.

It was never predominantly a political question. This boils down to this: Are you willing to sacrifice network security and systemic robustness for some political goal? The answer should be an overwhelming "no." You can keep belaboring the point, but you'll have a hard time convincing anyone. We cannot move forward until we have a technically sound solution. There is little evidence to argue that BIP101 fits that description, and overwhelming evidence that it doesn't.

I do not think that increasing the block size would necessarily sacrifice network security and systemic robustness. If I argue that the political goal should be to increase adoption while maximizing decentralization and financial freedom, I would think that network security and systematic robustness would be an important aspect for this political goal as well. It is important to remember that increasing adoption will also increase network security and robustness, and allowing the network to overload would seriously hamper adoption and public perception. To think that we should create the perfect system from an engineers perspective would be the wrong approach since that would not take into account the more complex nature of this problem. That is why it would be better if we can compromise between these different perspectives.

Bitcoin itself in its current form and even in its original state represents such a compromise. Since from an engineers perspective the most efficient payment system would be one that is centralized, decentralized systems are less efficient but they are “better” because of very human reasons. The subjective definition of what is “better” is a result of our ideology and the priories we apply to this problem. This should be the product of ethics and political philosophy with a grounding in the technical realities in terms of what is possible. Therefore the technical perspective should not be prioritized over the philosophical principles of what we think Bitcoin should become.

[VeritasSapere]

Most people do not even run full nodes today, and personally I would be able to continue to run my full nodes even with the larger blocksize. It would be better if most people would be reliant on SPV wallets, as opososed to being reliant on third parties, which is what would happen if we do not increase the block size, and if we did need third parties to transact on the Bitcoin blockchain directly what would even be the point in running a full node in the first place.

SPV relies on third parties and is not private! "Most people do not run full nodes today" is absolutely not a reason to make it harder than it is.

The point is to spread governance as wide as possible to people from all nationalities, creeds, regions and economic classes. I really don't care if a majority of people cannot directly access the Bitcoin blockchain, if we, the people, can hold control and enforce a sound monetary policy. Only banks will use it for all I care. At that point they'll be software companies competing on the open market with open source solutions.

Bitcoin is not anonymous or private anyway, even if you are running a full node. I do care about who will be able to use Bitcoin, I think it would be better if as many people as possible could benefit from the advantages of the Bitcoin blockchain.

[poeEDgar]

I do not think that increasing the block size would necessarily sacrifice network security and systemic robustness.

It does not necessarily, but in order for this to remain true, we must take a responsible approach from a technical perspective. BIP101 fails miserably in that regard. Gavin, Mike, nor anyone else has provided an adequate response to the technical criticisms from Core devs or the community at large. So until a technically sound solution exists, yes -- insisting on a fork now would necessarily sacrifice network security and systemic robustness.

To think that we should create the perfect system from an engineers perspective would be the wrong approach since that would not take into account the more complex nature of this problem. That is why it would be better if we can compromise between these different perspectives.

This is not a test net. It is a live, functioning economy. Please understand that some have very significant amounts of money at stake. It really seems that you have no consideration for that. Maintaining network security through any protocol change is the single most important object. There is no room for compromise. That is not to say the protocol should never be changed -- but your political ideals absolutely are secondary to these concerns.

Since from an engineers perspective the most efficient payment system would be one that is centralized, decentralized systems are less efficient but they are “better” because of very human reasons. The subjective definition of what is “better” is a result of our ideology and the priories we apply to this problem.

This is a moot point. Bitcoin was conceived and created as a decentralized ledger. This is not an excuse to rationalize your political goals as paramount.

Therefore the technical perspective should not be prioritized over the philosophical principles of what we think Bitcoin should become.

Bitcoin already is -- never mind what you think it should become. And those of us who have been around for years invested in a system that was created to store and maintain the value that we took ownership of. Don't forget that.

You simply "don't believe" that anything can go wrong -- or if it does, it can easily be fixed. Sorry, doesn't work like that. You think we can endlessly scale based on politics -- those of us who have owned and used bitcoin for years, and continue to store value on the network be damned. Sorry, but I can't support an approach that is a slap in the face to the true stakeholders.

We are at a fundamental impasse. You won't convince me that some political ideal of 7 billion people being able to use bitcoin freely and cheaply is paramount to keeping the system itself functional. I can't keep responding to these arguments. If you continue to refuse to address the technical issues, I have to consider this conversation done. Thanks.

[VeritasSapere]

I do not think that increasing the block size would necessarily sacrifice network security and systemic robustness.

It does not necessarily, but in order for this to remain true, we must take a responsible approach from a technical perspective. BIP101 fails miserably in that regard. Gavin, Mike, nor anyone else has provided an adequate response to the technical criticisms from Core devs or the community at large. So until a technically sound solution exists, yes -- insisting on a fork now would necessarily sacrifice network security and systemic robustness.

You keep repeating this however instead of just stating this you should explain why it would sacrifice network security and systemic robustness. I also do not think it is true that Gavin and Mike have not provided an adequate response. I do think that a technically sound solution exist, just increase the blocksize. You know that my position is to support an alternative client that will do so until Core decides to increase the blocksize, or if the economic majority decides to fork away from the Core development team. I would support a third solution that would represent the middle ground between these extremes, as soon as it becomes real. I would support yearly increases from 5% to 40% with a fixed limit, or a dynamic block size, or a blocksize that is decided on by the miners. I just want the blocksize to be increased because I think that leaving the restriction in place and allowing the network to become overload would seriously hamper adoption and public perception, I would hope that you would agree with that as well. Why are you so opposed to my position, we should be on the same side of this discussion.

To think that we should create the perfect system from an engineers perspective would be the wrong approach since that would not take into account the more complex nature of this problem. That is why it would be better if we can compromise between these different perspectives.

This is not a test net. It is a live, functioning economy. Please understand that some have very significant amounts of money at stake. It really seems that you have no consideration for that. Maintaining network security through any protocol change is the single most important object. There is no room for compromise. That is not to say the protocol should never be changed -- but your political ideals absolutely are secondary to these concerns.

You do not see the point that I was making, I said that the American revolution was a political experiment, that certainly does mean that there was a significant amount at stake. Bitcoin is also such a political experiment because it is unprecedented. You say that I have no consideration for the what is at stake, but I most certainly do, I am a miner and I am invested as well, I am motivated to do what I think is best for Bitcoin. I usually do not respond to such ad hominem attacks but you seem more reasonable.

Since from an engineers perspective the most efficient payment system would be one that is centralized, decentralized systems are less efficient but they are “better” because of very human reasons. The subjective definition of what is “better” is a result of our ideology and the priories we apply to this problem.

This is a moot point. Bitcoin was conceived and created as a decentralized ledger. This is not an excuse to rationalize your political goals as paramount.

This is not a counter argument

Therefore the technical perspective should not be prioritized over the philosophical principles of what we think Bitcoin should become.

Bitcoin already is -- never mind what you think it should become.

I agree I do not want to change Bitcoin that is why I think that the blocksize should be increased because that was a part of the origonal promise and vission of Bitcoin, or the social contract so to speak.

You simply "don't believe" that anything can go wrong -- or if it does, it can easily be fixed.

I never said this, and I do not think that this is the case.

You think we can endlessly scale based on politics.

I also never said this. I do not think we can endlessly scale based on politics. How much we can scale, the Bitcoin blockchain directly depends on the limits of our technology.

-- those of us who have owned and used bitcoin for years, and continue to store value on the network be damned. Sorry, but I can't support an approach that is a slap in the face to the true stakeholders.

I have also never said this. I am also a stakeholder myself. I think that increasing the transaction limit would not undermine the ability to store value, if anything it would most likely improve it by increasing Bitcoins utility.

We are at a fundamental impasse. You won't convince me that some political ideal of 7 billion people being able to use bitcoin freely and cheaply is paramount to keeping the system itself functional.

I have never said this as well, I also do not think we can scale Bitcoin so that seven billion people can use it directly, maybe far into the future, but that is something we do not need to consider now. It seems like you are continuously accusing and countering arguments which I have not made, which is a straw man argument a logical fallacy.

I can't keep responding to these arguments. If you continue to refuse to address the technical issues

You have not even brought up any technical issues, you just continuesly claim that BIP101 sacrifices network security and systemic robustness, however you have not backed that up with an argument. I have asked you to, I have even sent you a link to the thread that I started which attempts to refute the claim of mining centralisation because of increased blocksize. I actually agree with you that BIP101 is maybe not the best technical solution, and that I would support a third alternative. We should be on the same side of this discussion.

[poeEDgar]

VeritasSapere, please read my post history. I have made several technical arguments that you have not addressed once. This is simply insulting at this point. I appreciate that you took time to make long-winded responses, but you are literally just repeating yourself.

[VeritasSapere]

VeritasSapere, please read my post history. I have made several technical arguments that you have not addressed once. This is simply insulting at this point. I appreciate that you took time to make long-winded responses, but you are literally just repeating yourself.

I was referring to this thread and in the discussion we have had here, I have not read your post history, I presumed you have not read mine based on the false assumptions you made about my views. I am sorry if you find it insulting that I have not read your post history. I will read your post history and get back to you after I have done that, it will take me some time to do, and possibly research to try and understand. I do not have a unlimited amount of time and I do have other priorities so my response might take some time, but I will respond.

[poeEDgar]

Sorry if I came off like a dick. That wasn't my intention. I just really can't keep spending time on this. I intended to make this one post -- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1167224.msg12296172#msg12296172 -- and didn't intend to get involved in any of this discussion. I got roped in by some of the more disingenuous folks.

I didn't mean to mischaracterize your views, but I was making pretty logical inferences. The problem with your approach is that you rarely address the actual point made; you respond to it with your beliefs about governance and philosophy. There are serious technical problems with BIP101 and the very idea of exponential scaling, and they won't be sorted out by philosophical discussions.

There are a couple primary points about BIP101 and the idea of exponential scaling that are problematic, that I began to lay out here:

One thing that I think BIP101 supporters don't realize is that there may be future incentives that encourage filling block capacity. And while most people assume that organic adoption will be the cause, that is not necessarily the case.

The first manifestation of this: the blockchain stress test. In this case, economic disincentives be damned, in order to bloat blocks. So here we have a situation where we argue in favor increasing the block size limit due to the argument that organic adoption is happening and is exponential (that is quite a controversial statement, too). But in reality, blocks are being filled with spam transactions that are intended to do nothing but fill capacity. Meanwhile, bigger and bigger blocks --> bigger and bigger block propagation delays --> higher and higher volumes of orphaned blocks. Then there is the possibility of hardware and bandwidth limitations not improving to the extent demanded by BIP101's scaling schedule. More importantly are the problems that have not made themselves apparent yet -- as conditions at 1MB =/= conditions at 8GB. A more reasonable middle ground that is in tune with actual transaction growth will allow us to deal with the issues that come with scaling in real time, rather than on a prescribed schedule determined by Moore's Law, which could easily outrun our abilities to maintain network security. (I have still yet to see a compelling reason why Moore's Law has any relevance here, anyway)

So, we might be inviting blockchain bloat without even achieving the sort of organic adoption implied by BIP101. And we will be jeopardizing network security in the process. This is part of the danger of allowing for potential scaling that bears no relevance to actual growth in transaction volume.

In the absence of an acceptable solution, the status quo is the only acceptable solution. That doesn't mean the debate is over, but that it is irresponsible to back code that is a) severely untested, b) necessarily completely untested in environments that are remotely similar to those that are hard-coded (conceivably, we can test a 2MB block regime in a .5MB environment -- can we test an 8GB block regime in a .5MB environment? no, that's insulting), c) peer reviewed by one person, d) lacking in technical explanation for the basis for its scaling schedule (why Moore's Law?) or how we can assume that all forms of technological throughput will improve at the rate of (or faster than) the exponential scaling schedule in BIP101, e) the list goes on but I don't have time for this.

Problems:

1) The code is thoroughly unaudited and untested. The idea of hard forking now is beyond irresponsible.
2) BIP 101 leaves bitcoin in a perpetual "test net" state for the next two decades. Exponential scaling every two years with linear scaling in between, IIRC. By definition, we cannot test the regime in the current environment, and will never be able to. This is the biggest issue, by far.
3) No technical explanation for using Moore's Law as a basis for scaling. No recognition that Moore's Law is not only unscientific but clearly failing. The best answer Gavin can provide is -- and I'm paraphrasing -- "technology gets better."
4) Hardware limitations, bandwidth limitations; centralization of nodes; delayed propagation times --> orphaned blocks. "Technology gets better." Can it keep up? Is it responsible to baselessly scale --> wait for a successful attack on the network --> soft fork back down after users sustain significant losses?

The important thing is that we cannot account for the conditions of a drastic block size increase (or therefore plan for potential attacks that may occur). Here's an idea that was off the top of my head: Spam --> increase block size --> propagate bigger blocks to force high latency miners to SPV mine (or otherwise orphan blocks) --> mine invalid blocks, forcing the SPV miners onto an invalid chain --> publish all the valid blocks afterwards to reap all the mining rewards for yourself.
https://bitcoin.org/en/alert/2015-07-04-spv-mining

But there's a lot of possibilities that could jeopardize network security, many of which are likely not yet understood.

These are issues that make BIP101 a technically unacceptable implementation. I can entertain the idea of a conservative block size increase, but not until there is a solution that is technically responsible.

I also don't think we necessarily have to have tunnel vision -- "scaling" =/= "increasing block size" specifically. For example, ideally, growth in transaction volume would be a result of organic adoption. But the current block capacity issues are actually primarily due to spam attacks that maximize size and minimize output. Maybe we can take another approach:

I'm disappointed that no one is taking this opportunity to discuss solutions to spam attacks (dust transactions w/ maximum outputs). That's actually the issue that is forcing this debate -- not organic growth in transaction volume, which on average, is nowhere near the limit.

I'll admit that I'm not entirely familiar with the issue.  Can you give an example?

I thought there is a dust limit of 5500 Satoshis.  is that set by the miners by consensus or is part of the protocol?

AFAIK, the minimum is slightly less than 550 satoshis, or < $0.0013. I believe the last Coinwallet stress test involved outputs of 0.00001 -- approximately double the current definition of dust.

In theory, nodes could observe the standard output of stress test transactions, then simply alter their conf files to not relay transactions with outputs of that size (or smaller). The only loss here is that people cannot quickly send $0.002 transactions. The gain is that above the agreed upon dust thresholds, the standard fee should be adequate (unless I am approaching this incorrectly).

It's not a protocol issue. It affects which transactions an unmodified bitcoind/bitcoin-qt client will relay on the network. Miners can put as many non-standard transaction in their blocks as they want, but without further modification the reference client will not broadcast or relay those transactions to the miners. It's completely configurable. If the current definition of dust is not economical, miners/nodes can just change their conf files.

One idea would be to increase the client-coded threshold that defines an output as dust, which would increase the aggregate amount of bitcoins required to push large spam transactions with dust outputs. Another idea would be to require an additional fee to push transactions on a per-dust-output basis.

The issue has other implications in regards to bloat.

Well no you already know that dust has nothing to do with blockchain size but EVERYTHING to do with UXTO bloat.  Dust (or a very high probability of dust approaching 1) won't be spent thus it remains in the UXTO.  For normal economic transactions the UXTO only grows linearly (related more to the number of discrete entities not total transactions over time).  This is good because the UXTO is a far more critical resource than the unpruned blockchain.   It is highly likely that in the future most full nodes won't even maintain the full blockchain but they will need the entire UXTO.

Having tiny worthless transactions which last forever in the UXTO lowers the efficiency of every node, forever.

Dust outputs won't get spent. 100BTC outputs will get spent and pruned.

Moore's Law isn't magic.  It reflects that people push back against wastes of CPU time, disk storage, and other limitations to push technology to its physical limits.  Processor speeds don't just magically increase.  Disk storage doesn't just magically increase.  The assumptions underlying Moore's Law (which isn't a real law) involve bean-counters identifying and eliminating wastes of resources that slow down systems and break them, just as much as they involve people inventing new technologies.

The threat from dust transactions may be on the un-glamorous, bean-counting side of technological improvement, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[VeritasSapere]

I didn't mean to mischaracterize your views, but I was making pretty logical inferences. The problem with your approach is that you rarely address the actual point made; you respond to it with your beliefs about governance and philosophy. There are serious technical problems with BIP101 and the very idea of exponential scaling, and they won't be sorted out by philosophical discussions.

That is cool man, we are both passionate about Bitcoin and we are both doing what we believe is right, I have been guilty of getting caught up and mistakenly committing straw man arguments as well presuming the views of others to fit into the stereotypes of ideological extremes. I still disagree with your position however, I think that philosophy and technical thinking are both important in this issue.

1) The code is thoroughly unaudited and untested. The idea of hard forking now is beyond irresponsible.

The hard fork will occur sometime after January 2016, only if the miners reach more then 75% consensus. So it does not take place now, this is factually incorrect. Furthermore you say that it is thoroughly unaudited and untested but it is just Core with the BIP101 patch, I do not see what is so irresponsible about that.

2) BIP 101 leaves bitcoin in a perpetual "test net" state for the next two decades. Exponential scaling every two years with linear scaling in between, IIRC. By definition, we cannot test the regime in the current environment, and will never be able to. This is the biggest issue, by far.

This is a logical fallacy, just because we cannot test something does not mean we should not do it, some things can only be tested by doing them. I have already made the argument that Bitcoin is a giant political and social experiment, it has been from the beginning. Some things need to happen this way if they are to occur at all.

3) No technical explanation for using Moore's Law as a basis for scaling. No recognition that Moore's Law is not only unscientific but clearly failing. The best answer Gavin can provide is -- and I'm paraphrasing -- "technology gets better.

First of all, BIP101 is not on the same schedule as Moore's law because the starting point is much lower then what we currently can handle in terms of the technology today, and BIP101 stops growth of block size completely in twenty years from now. My point is that even if technological development slows down it would still not mean that the blocks will get to big. However you are correct that it is very difficult to know this with certainty, my position is that if certainty is impossible we should do the best we can instead since that is still better then the alternative.

4) Hardware limitations, bandwidth limitations; centralization of nodes; delayed propagation times --> orphaned blocks. "Technology gets better." Can it keep up? Is it responsible to baselessly scale --> wait for a successful attack on the network --> soft fork back down after users sustain significant losses?

There are many assumptions here, you think that there will be a successful attack on the network because we have scaled up Bitcoin. Yet you do not explain how this attack would take place and why this would be as a direct result of the increased block size.

Here's an idea that was off the top of my head: Spam --> increase block size --> propagate bigger blocks to force high latency miners to SPV mine (or otherwise orphan blocks) --> mine invalid blocks, forcing the SPV miners onto an invalid chain --> publish all the valid blocks afterwards to reap all the mining rewards for yourself.

This does not make sense to me, I was mining at slush when Bitcoin forked just a few months ago, it forked for 6 blocks, because antpool mined a bunch of blocks from a invalid block, mined by a different pool. Because antpool was not using a full validating node, they where using a SPV node to mine which lead to this problem. However this has lead to some significant losses to antpool. Antpool has become significantly smaller since then because miners have chosen to point their mining power elsewhere. I would certainly not mine there after they did something so irresponsible. However my point is that pools are seriously disincentivized to mess up like this. Miners will not point their hashpower towards a pool that is losing luck because of a high number of orphans. They have since improved their systems and most other pools are presently not SPV mining. It is good to keep in mind that the main issue with block propagation is with the pools. The pools can be located almost anywhere in the world within data centers that have high bandwidth connections, since miners only need to send a very small amount of data to the pool and it is only the pool that needs to run a full node. Even twenty megabyte blocks would be trivial today for most desktop computers with average bandwidth in the developed world. It would still only be 16 megabyte blocks in more then five years from now under the schedule specified by BIP101.

It does seem like you have completely missed the point that I have been trying to make. Which is that I support BIP101 for reasons of political realism, this position is not invalid. Furthermore I have even conceded that BIP101 might not be the best technical solution. Since we should scale Bitcoin according to the limitations of our technology and projected technological developments, BIP101 might indeed not strike the right balance. Instead it might be better to adopt a third alternative which would need to represent a compromise between these two extreme positions. This however does not exist yet and would most likely need to be implemented in another alternative competing client, similarly to how Bitcoin XT has been implemented. I can respond to more of the technical arguments you have made here, but you have brought up so many issues simultaneously, I can not respond to all of them simultaneously, it will take me a few days before I can respond to the rest of your technical arguments.

[poeEDgar]

I really find these responses completely inadequate. You're basically just quoting what I've said, incorrectly throwing around phrases like "factually incorrect" and "logical fallacy," before delivering the grand finale:

we should do the best we can

just because we cannot test something does not mean we should not do it

some things need to happen this way if they are to occur at all

I support BIP101 for reasons of political realism

I really can't spend any more time on this.

[brg444]

I really find these responses completely inadequate. You're basically just quoting what I've said, incorrectly throwing around phrases like "factually incorrect" and "logical fallacy," before delivering the grand finale:

we should do the best we can

just because we cannot test something does not mean we should not do it

some things need to happen this way if they are to occur at all

I support BIP101 for reasons of political realism

I really can't spend any more time on this.

"Political realism"

[VeritasSapere]

I really find these responses completely inadequate. You're basically just quoting what I've said, incorrectly throwing around phrases like "factually incorrect" and "logical fallacy," before delivering the grand finale:

we should do the best we can

just because we cannot test something does not mean we should not do it

some things need to happen this way if they are to occur at all

I support BIP101 for reasons of political realism

I really can't spend any more time on this.

It would be more convincing if you actually argued why I am incorrect in saying that the fork is not taking place now. Or if you argued why specifically you are not committing a logical fallacy in this case. Just because you disagree with me and do not think you can respond to my arguments, does not mean that I am wrong. This last post you have made also does not make any counter arguments whatsoever. My position is supported by reason.

[brg444]

I really find these responses completely inadequate. You're basically just quoting what I've said, incorrectly throwing around phrases like "factually incorrect" and "logical fallacy," before delivering the grand finale:

we should do the best we can

just because we cannot test something does not mean we should not do it

some things need to happen this way if they are to occur at all

I support BIP101 for reasons of political realism

I really can't spend any more time on this.

It would be more convincing if you actually argued why I am incorrect in saying that the fork is not taking place now. Or if you argued why specifically you are not committing a logical fallacy in this case. Just because you disagree with me and do not think you can respond to my arguments, does not mean that I am wrong. This last post you have made also does not make any counter arguments whatsoever. My position is supported by reason.

Your position is supported by nothing but your tireless political word salad. That's why no one bothers arguing with you for longer than a couple of posts.

[poeEDgar]

I really find these responses completely inadequate. You're basically just quoting what I've said, incorrectly throwing around phrases like "factually incorrect" and "logical fallacy," before delivering the grand finale:

we should do the best we can

just because we cannot test something does not mean we should not do it

some things need to happen this way if they are to occur at all

I support BIP101 for reasons of political realism

I really can't spend any more time on this.

It would be more convincing if you actually argued why I am incorrect in saying that the fork is not taking place now. Or if you argued why specifically you are not committing a logical fallacy in this case.

I can't keep wasting time arguing why you are incorrect. That the fork could take place a few months from now is not an adequate response to the claim that BIP101 is thoroughly unaudited and untested. You just keep writing epically long posts in which you

rarely address the actual point made; you respond to it with your beliefs about governance and philosophy.

Re: logical fallacy, this is the exchange:

2) BIP 101 leaves bitcoin in a perpetual "test net" state for the next two decades. Exponential scaling every two years with linear scaling in between, IIRC. By definition, we cannot test the regime in the current environment, and will never be able to. This is the biggest issue, by far.

This is a logical fallacy, just because we cannot test something does not mean we should not do it, some things can only be tested by doing them. I have already made the argument that Bitcoin is a giant political and social experiment, it has been from the beginning. Some things need to happen this way if they are to occur at all.

The burden is on you to state how it is a logical fallacy, firstly. Secondly, the burden is on you, again, to explain why this bizarre political response about experimentation is an adequate response to the technical problem of untested regimes.

Your epic posts are riddled with these dubious statements. You just respond with things like "I do not see what is so irresponsible about running BIP101" and consider that an adequate response to reasons why it is, in fact, irresponsible to run BIP101.

Just because you disagree with me and do not think you can respond to my arguments, does not mean that I am wrong. This last post you have made also does not make any counter arguments whatsoever. My position is supported by reason.

On the contrary, a cursory look at our exchanges reveals that I have, in fact, made painstaking efforts to respond to your ridiculous positions. You continue to use evasive and fallacious approaches instead of providing substantive responses.

I've been humoring you for far too long, allowing you to fall under the mistaken belief that your arguments were worthy of being responding to. That ends now. I'm tired of wasting my time on you. Sorry.

[VeritasSapere]

It would be more convincing if you actually argued why I am incorrect in saying that the fork is not taking place now. Or if you argued why specifically you are not committing a logical fallacy in this case.

I can't keep wasting time arguing why you are incorrect. That the fork could take place a few months from now is not an adequate response to the claim that BIP101 is thoroughly unaudited and untested. You just keep writing epically long posts in which you

I never said this. You said that it is irresponsible to do a fork now, I simply replied by saying that a fork has not been implemented now but that it will be implemented after January 16th if consensus is reached.

rarely address the actual point made; you respond to it with your beliefs about governance and philosophy.

Because I think that these subjects are relevant to the points you have made and the situation that we are in.

The burden is on you to state how it is a logical fallacy

You are using a fallacy of Unwarranted assumption since you are basing some of your conclusions on scenarios which are very unlikely to take place, and which you have not argued for taking place either. You are also saying that we should not increase the block size because it is untested, However then you say that it is impossible to actually test increasing the block size, this is however not true since it can be tested by actually implementing it. You are also using the nirvana fallacy. Since one of your criticisms of BIP101 is that it is not perfect, yet a perfect solution does not exist, yet you think we should wait for this perfect or better solution that does not exist yet and which might not ever exist. You are also using an argument from silence, since you are basing your conclusion on a lack of contrary evidence, you said it yourself that the biggest problem are the problems that we can not predict yet. You have also made an appeal to the stone, since you have claimed that my argument is absurd or bizarre without actually demonstrating why this is the case. You are also guilty of using straw man arguments and ad hominem as well, but these fallacies can at least just be ignored in terms of the argumentation itself.

Secondly, the burden is on you, again, to explain why this bizarre political response about experimentation is an adequate response to the technical problem of untested regimes.

Firstly I have already explained why this is the case, you are ignoring that I have already answered this question. However as I said before Bitcoin is a social and political experiment and the only way that these things can truly be tested, is in reality. I am not against doing any more testing that is possible but you have even stated your self that it is impossible to test for and predict all of the attacks and variables. If we could never test these types of ideas then civilization could never have grown to where it is today. I have already cited plenty of historical precedent for this, it is self evident that Bitcoin is a giant political and social experiment, such an experiment can not be successfully carried out on the test net.

You have not even responded to my rebuttal of your counter arguments, so as far as this dialectic goes that is still where the reasoning stands. You are still however completely missing the point that I have been trying to make.

[poeEDgar]

It would be more convincing if you actually argued why I am incorrect in saying that the fork is not taking place now. Or if you argued why specifically you are not committing a logical fallacy in this case.

I can't keep wasting time arguing why you are incorrect. That the fork could take place a few months from now is not an adequate response to the claim that BIP101 is thoroughly unaudited and untested. You just keep writing epically long posts in which you

I never said this. You said that it is irresponsible to do a fork now, I simply replied by saying that a fork has not been implemented now but that it will be implemented after January 16th if consensus is reached.

Your label of "factually incorrect" was laughable. I said that advocating a fork now was irresponsible because the code is thoroughly unaudited and untested. You continually take the dishonest approach by addressing the passive word "now" rather than the active argument, "that BIP101 is thoroughly unaudited and untested." You, of course, have never addressed that point.

rarely address the actual point made; you respond to it with your beliefs about governance and philosophy.

Because I think that these subjects are relevant to the points you have made and the situation that we are in.

That doesn't justify avoiding my arguments with entirely irrelevant bullshit about governance and politics. Conflating technical issues with political issues is dishonest and evasive; it is merely a refusal to acknowledge that bitcoin is a technology with technical limitations.

You are using a fallacy of Unwarranted assumption since you are basing some of your conclusions on scenarios which are very unlikely to take place, and which you have not argued for taking place either. You are also saying that we should not increase the block size because it is untested, However then you say that it is impossible to actually test increasing the block size, this is however not true since it can be tested by actually implementing it.

Please prove that the scenario [lapse in network security] is [very unlikely to take place] under an exponential scaling regime. I've given multiple examples, which you have inadequately addressed. More knowledgeable people could shed light on others. You, again, are mischaracterizing my position to suit your argument. I've argued that a gradual, incremental approach is preferable, and in line with engineering and development standards:

conceivably, we can test a 2MB block regime in a .5MB environment -- can we test an 8GB block regime in a .5MB environment? no, that's insulting

You are also using the nirvana fallacy. Since one of your criticisms of BIP101 is that it is not perfect, yet a perfect solution does not exist, yet you think we should wait for this perfect or better solution that does not exist yet and which might not ever exist.

Criticizing BIP101 =/= waiting for a "perfect" solution. Rejecting one of the first reckless proposals =/= waiting for a "perfect" solution. I've already stated to you multiple times that BIP102 is a much more acceptable approach, which will allow us to deal with potential issues of scaling in real time and increase capacity on a need basis, rather than baselessly assuming that we can immediately solve any threat that arises on an exponentially increasing schedule. That BIP101 is perceived by some as a "solution" does not, by extension, make it acceptable.

You are also using an argument from silence, since you are basing your conclusion on a lack of contrary evidence, you said it yourself that the biggest problem are the problems that we can not predict yet.

My conclusions aren't based on a lack of contrary evidence -- although yes, you have done absolutely nothing to prove that BIP101 is worthy from a technical perspective (the bitcoin dev community and the miners have already voiced their opinion that it is not), and repeatedly blathering about social contracts and the American revolution doesn't change that.

I said that in addition to known problems that will likely arise, many others exist that are likely not yet understood. And yes, any assertion otherwise is beyond naive. This is not an argument for inaction, but conservative action. And by reciprocity, that we have not predicted every problem that will arise with BIP101's aggressive scaling schedule is not an adequate reason to run thoroughly unaudited and untested code with no technical justification for its method of scaling -- which Gavin/Hearn nor anyone else have justified amidst a multitude of technical criticisms.

You have also made an appeal to the stone, since you have claimed that my argument is absurd or bizarre without actually demonstrating why this is the case.

I've stated multiple times why these arguments are completely irrelevant. Let me dumb it down for you by demonstrating your two most common strategies:

Me: BIP101 is technically unsound because A, B and C.
You: But it is just Core with the BIP101 patch, I do not see what is so irresponsible about that.

Me: BIP101 is technically unsound because A, B and C.
You: I support BIP101 for reasons of political realism.

You are also guilty of using straw man arguments and ad hominem as well, but these fallacies can at least just be ignored in terms of the argumentation itself.

I take issue with the unbacked claim of straw man arguments. In fact, I've kept the ad hominem to a minimum, but it will only increase from here on out, as you've made it abundantly clear that you cannot argue logically and honestly. Thus, you are not worth anyone's time.

You have not even responded to my rebuttal of your counter arguments, so as far as this dialectic goes that is still where the reasoning stands. You are still however completely missing the point that I have been trying to make.

I'm not going to respond to your meaningless political drivel. Not anymore. Now that I've responded to your pathetic attempts at logic, I can be done with that, too. I get your point -- you think maintaining a position purely out of political spite is acceptable, in the face of legitimate technical criticism. Cool story. Thank goodness that this kind of utter foolishness appears still to be in the minority.

[mallard]

Numerous solutions named BIP 100, BIP 101, BIP 102, BIP , and others—BIP stands for “Bitcoin Improvement Proposal.” Another proposed solution has been Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn’s Bitcoin XT client, which supports bigger blocks, but also poses the possibility of a hard fork for the Bitcoin protocol and network.

I think all of them require a hard fork.