Satoshi Nakamoto PLEASE resolve this debate? 1MB blockstream vs 8MB Gavin Blocks

[BayAreaCoins]

In my personal opinion, Satoshi is almost certainly already dead.

I personally believe Satoshi is among us and waiting for the right time to fund a country into an empire.  Frankly, I don't see any other reason for doing it.

No fucking way he "lost" his private keys either.   He very well could have kicked the bucket. RIP Hal

This 1mb vs 8mb isn't a big enough deal for him to come out of the wood work even if BTC goes to $15 a coin.

[glub0x]

Satoshi as already spoken, it is in the first pages of his whitepaper. Just read the introduction and tell me if you think satoshi was thinking of a network of "high value transaction"or a network of small casual transactions as well as big ones.
Here is the link for you.
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Hint : The first 4 words says it all "Commerce on the Internet [...]"

The thing is, in the urge of making quick buck some people with different views got on board of the train, we didn't check there tickets and now the train has been hijacked...

[worldinacoin]

As if he will come out

[Mickeyb]

Satoshi Nakamoto,

Please come out of hiding and resolve this debate.

1MB Blockstream vs 8MB Gavin Blocks?

I really love Bitcoin and don't want to see it go down in flames.

Thanks,
Your friend and admirer.

The moment Satoshi would come back and done this, Bitcoin would be doomed for the future in my opinion.

Think about it a bit clearer. Bitcoin has been designed to be decentralized, to not have a central authority or a central person to depend upon. If Satoshi was to come back and help us clear this debate, he would have destroyed right away the above premises.

He would certainly help Bitcoin short-term, but long term he would not do a favour to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Satoshi knows this very well and that's why he will remain silent.

[monsanto]

Satoshi Nakamoto,

Please come out of hiding and resolve this debate.

You can ask him here:

https://twitter.com/NickSzabo4

[Amph]

well it does not look like the consensus mechanic is working either,

Why do you say that?

Bitcoin is still working just fine.

If someone wants to implement a variation on the protocol, they can go ahead and do that.  If they get enough people that join their protocol variation, then they will have a consensus among their participants.

because apparently it seems that miners can dictate their decision, and in the end besides merchants common people can not really vote, or their votes will be negligeable

for example bip100, it appear to be not the best solution and can be abused by miners, yet it looks like it's winning the competition

what i mean is that what the consensus will choose, it will not be necessarily the correct solution...

[HarHarHar9965]

As if he will come out

its funny how people believe that there might even be a Satoshi out there, maybe it is a group of people who were dedicated to create a better technology, their goals could vary but their motivation was similar. And even if Satoshi exists, it is uncertain for him to come out now. He could be questioned about what his intentions are, if he wants to destroy banks and rule the drug world and make drug trafficking easy and all that shit. Nah, not worth it.

[Quickseller]

"Is it needed yet?"

I think so, according to the below graph that I got from this blog post (by Gavin Anderson), (as of May 2015) the mempool would often not be cleared when new blocks were found/propagated. Even though this is a small dataset, I would conclude this to mean that often times there are (unpredictable) backlogs that will deter people from using Bitcoin.

The sharp dips are when new blocks have been found

I'd say that coding an 8000x increase into the protocol that is in no way connected to actual capacity needs doesn't really line up with that.

Well, keep in mind that miners won't be required to create larger blocks, they'll just have the opportunity to do so if they want to.

To be fair, they would need to validate larger blocks if another miner were to create a larger block (which does take resources)

If I remember correctly, Satoshi added the 1 MB limit in 2010 to prevent some sort of DDOS attack?  If so, then there are a few important questions:

1) Is that DDOS attack still a viable threat if the maximum blocksize limit is removed? increased?

I believe that transaction volume was very low when the 1 MB limit was implemented in 2010, and even less economic related transactions (according to the Bitcoin Wiki, MtGox was only created in June 2010, and the first 10k BTC pizza was purchased in May 2010). So I think the greater threat was that nodes would get overwhelmed by a DDoS attack, verses that users would have difficulty getting their transactions confirmed.

I believe that the majority of nodes would be able to support the validation and rebroadcasting (and storage) of larger blocks, as well as the larger expected mempool size associated with larger blocks.

If the maximum block size is too low (as I believe it is now), then it would be very easy and cheap for an adversary to prevent legitimate economic transactions from completing (confirming), which would cripple the bitcoin economy, and as evidenced in the most recent stress tests. I also know that a too small of a maximum block size will allow the mempool to get overwhelmingly large and would cause many nodes to crash (my node had crashed several times, sometimes multiple times per day at the tail end of the most recent stress tests). 

3) If it is not possible to prevent the attack with some other method, then is it possible to determine the best limit today, in the near future, and in the long term, without needing to have this debate repeatedly for the rest of bitcoin's existence?

I don't think so. It is too difficult to predict that far into the future as even a small error in an estimate verses actual growth would cause a very large difference when compounded over time. It is however much easier to lower the maximum block size limit then it is to raise it (a soft fork could be used to lower it which is much easier to implement). So I believe that it would be best to be somewhat aggressive in raising the max block size limit as long as we are confident that the network could handle the larger blocks in the near term.

[AGD]

In my personal opinion, Satoshi is almost certainly already dead.

However, he fortunately already expressed an opinion about increasing the blocksize before he disappeared:

It can be phased in, like:

if (blocknumber > 115000)
    maxblocksize = largerlimit

It can start being in versions way ahead, so by the time it reaches that block number and goes into effect, the older versions that don't have it are already obsolete.

When we're near the cutoff block number, I can put an alert to old versions to make sure they know they have to upgrade.

Sounds like he was in favor of increasing the block size when it is needed.  The only question is:

"Is it needed yet?"

His quote about blocksize is exactly what core devs should be doing right now. Most of the XT discussion would be obsolete, when intelligent blocksize raising would come into effect. There are enough parameters that could be used to automate the process. Give the people enough time to adapt to the hard fork and anything should be running smoothly.

BTW, I agree, that it pretty much looks like SN is dead. I would even say, his death must have hit him by surprise. He had no time to move his coins.

[BayAreaCoins]

Ya he just up and died when Gavin went to talk to the CIA.

I imagine that's what happened too  

(sarcasm)

[Westin Landon Cox]

Satoshi's views shouldn't be the deciding factor. But ...

I suspect the recent email really was from Satoshi.

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-August/010238.html

I have been following the recent block size debates through the mailing list.  I had hoped the debate would resolve and that a fork proposal would achieve widespread consensus.  However with the formal release of Bitcoin XT 0.11A, this looks unlikely to happen, and so I am forced to share my concerns about this very dangerous fork.

The developers of this pretender-Bitcoin claim to be following my original vision, but nothing could be further from the truth.  When I designed Bitcoin, I designed it in such a way as to make future modifications to the consensus rules difficult without near unanimous agreement.  Bitcoin was designed to be protected from the influence of charismatic leaders, even if their name is Gavin Andresen, Barack Obama, or Satoshi Nakamoto.  Nearly everyone has to agree on a change, and they have to do it without being forced or pressured into it.  By doing a fork in this way, these developers are violating the "original vision" they claim to honour.

They use my old writings to make claims about what Bitcoin was supposed to be.  However I acknowledge that a lot has changed since that time, and new knowledge has been gained that contradicts some of my early opinions.  For example I didn't anticipate pooled mining and its effects on the security of the network.  Making Bitcoin a competitive monetary system while also preserving its security properties is not a trivial problem, and we should take more time to come up with a robust solution.  I suspect we need a better incentive for users to run nodes instead of relying solely on altruism.

If two developers can fork Bitcoin and succeed in redefining what "Bitcoin" is, in the face of widespread technical criticism and through the use of populist tactics, then I will have no choice but to declare Bitcoin a failed project.  Bitcoin was meant to be both technically and socially robust.  This present situation has been very disappointing to watch unfold.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Doubters said it was from a "hacked" email address, but it was the gmx email that was hacked, not the vistomail email. And the vistomail email address does date back to the beginning of bitcoin.

Doubters said the "real" Satoshi would've signed the message. But Satoshi never signed his messages. And, in any case, signing it would've undermined his message that even he should not be considered a charismatic leader that can make modifications to the consensus rules without near unanimous agreement.

[Muhammed Zakir]

In my personal opinion, Satoshi is almost certainly already dead.

However, he fortunately already expressed an opinion about increasing the blocksize before he disappeared:

It can be phased in, like:

if (blocknumber > 115000)
    maxblocksize = largerlimit

It can start being in versions way ahead, so by the time it reaches that block number and goes into effect, the older versions that don't have it are already obsolete.

When we're near the cutoff block number, I can put an alert to old versions to make sure they know they have to upgrade.

Sounds like he was in favor of increasing the block size when it is needed.  The only question is:

"Is it needed yet?"

His quote about blocksize is exactly what core devs should be doing right now. Most of the XT discussion would be obsolete, when intelligent blocksize raising would come into effect. There are enough parameters that could be used to automate the process. Give the people enough time to adapt to the hard fork and anything should be running smoothly.

BTW, I agree, that it pretty much looks like SN is dead. I would even say, his death must have hit him by surprise. He had no time to move his coins.

What Satoshi is saying in the given example is, if number of blocks is greater than 115000, then maximum block size limit should be increased. He is not telling what the maximum block size limit should be.

[RGBKey]

As someone else has already pointed out, if a single person such as Satoshi is needed to resolve this issue or any issue, then Bitcoin is a failure.

True, we should be able to work this out on our own through consensus, but the bitcoin network isn't made of individual people all running their own node any more. It's getting more centralized than it should. People don't know as much ad they should.

[NorrisK]

In my personal opinion, Satoshi is almost certainly already dead.

However, he fortunately already expressed an opinion about increasing the blocksize before he disappeared:

It can be phased in, like:

if (blocknumber > 115000)
    maxblocksize = largerlimit

It can start being in versions way ahead, so by the time it reaches that block number and goes into effect, the older versions that don't have it are already obsolete.

When we're near the cutoff block number, I can put an alert to old versions to make sure they know they have to upgrade.

Sounds like he was in favor of increasing the block size when it is needed.  The only question is:

"Is it needed yet?"

His quote about blocksize is exactly what core devs should be doing right now. Most of the XT discussion would be obsolete, when intelligent blocksize raising would come into effect. There are enough parameters that could be used to automate the process. Give the people enough time to adapt to the hard fork and anything should be running smoothly.

BTW, I agree, that it pretty much looks like SN is dead. I would even say, his death must have hit him by surprise. He had no time to move his coins.

What Satoshi is saying in the given example is, if number of blocks is greater than 115000, then maximum block size limit should be increased. He is not telling what the maximum block size limit should be.

8 mb is also quite an arbitrary number itself. The biggest message here is that we should not be afraid of a bigger max block size when needed. How high it should go is just a tiny detail.

[Carlton Banks]

well it does not look like the consensus mechanic is working either,

Why do you say that?

Bitcoin is still working just fine.

If someone wants to implement a variation on the protocol, they can go ahead and do that.  If they get enough people that join their protocol variation, then they will have a consensus among their participants.

because apparently it seems that miners can dictate their decision, and in the end besides merchants common people can not really vote, or their votes will be negligeable

Just don't use a given cryptocoin after a hard fork you don't like. Miners won't mine and merchants won't accept a currency that has zero users. The users have all the power, but no "votes"

[Quickseller]

In my personal opinion, Satoshi is almost certainly already dead.

However, he fortunately already expressed an opinion about increasing the blocksize before he disappeared:

It can be phased in, like:

if (blocknumber > 115000)
    maxblocksize = largerlimit

It can start being in versions way ahead, so by the time it reaches that block number and goes into effect, the older versions that don't have it are already obsolete.

When we're near the cutoff block number, I can put an alert to old versions to make sure they know they have to upgrade.

Sounds like he was in favor of increasing the block size when it is needed.  The only question is:

"Is it needed yet?"

His quote about blocksize is exactly what core devs should be doing right now. Most of the XT discussion would be obsolete, when intelligent blocksize raising would come into effect. There are enough parameters that could be used to automate the process. Give the people enough time to adapt to the hard fork and anything should be running smoothly.

BTW, I agree, that it pretty much looks like SN is dead. I would even say, his death must have hit him by surprise. He had no time to move his coins.

What Satoshi is saying in the given example is, if number of blocks is greater than 115000, then maximum block size limit should be increased. He is not telling what the maximum block size limit should be.

Satoshi was describing a process that is very similar to how BIP 101 would work. At block x₁, the max block size will increase to n, then at block x₂, the max block size will increase to 2n, and so on....

He may have not specifically said that the max block size should increase at that level of an exponential rate, however transaction volume is generally expected to grow at exponential rates, and economic growth certainly grows at exponential rates

[Mickeyb]

Satoshi's views shouldn't be the deciding factor. But ...

I suspect the recent email really was from Satoshi.

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-August/010238.html

I have been following the recent block size debates through the mailing list.  I had hoped the debate would resolve and that a fork proposal would achieve widespread consensus.  However with the formal release of Bitcoin XT 0.11A, this looks unlikely to happen, and so I am forced to share my concerns about this very dangerous fork.

The developers of this pretender-Bitcoin claim to be following my original vision, but nothing could be further from the truth.  When I designed Bitcoin, I designed it in such a way as to make future modifications to the consensus rules difficult without near unanimous agreement.  Bitcoin was designed to be protected from the influence of charismatic leaders, even if their name is Gavin Andresen, Barack Obama, or Satoshi Nakamoto.  Nearly everyone has to agree on a change, and they have to do it without being forced or pressured into it.  By doing a fork in this way, these developers are violating the "original vision" they claim to honour.

They use my old writings to make claims about what Bitcoin was supposed to be.  However I acknowledge that a lot has changed since that time, and new knowledge has been gained that contradicts some of my early opinions.  For example I didn't anticipate pooled mining and its effects on the security of the network.  Making Bitcoin a competitive monetary system while also preserving its security properties is not a trivial problem, and we should take more time to come up with a robust solution.  I suspect we need a better incentive for users to run nodes instead of relying solely on altruism.

If two developers can fork Bitcoin and succeed in redefining what "Bitcoin" is, in the face of widespread technical criticism and through the use of populist tactics, then I will have no choice but to declare Bitcoin a failed project.  Bitcoin was meant to be both technically and socially robust.  This present situation has been very disappointing to watch unfold.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Doubters said it was from a "hacked" email address, but it was the gmx email that was hacked, not the vistomail email. And the vistomail email address does date back to the beginning of bitcoin.

Doubters said the "real" Satoshi would've signed the message. But Satoshi never signed his messages. And, in any case, signing it would've undermined his message that even he should not be considered a charismatic leader that can make modifications to the consensus rules without near unanimous agreement.

You also need to think about this: If this was really an email from Satoshi and if he has seen how the community has rejected this email to be real since he didn't sign a message, don't you think that he would have sent another email with a signed message.

If he cared enough to send a first email, why wouldn't he care again and send another email just with a signed message this time.

[bitbollo]

why you make this bored and idiot topic?
one man can't solve it! if he can all system is broken is not what we think it is or can be.
He can help to spread an idea but both idea have lack and strenght....
Stop to say him his died!

Did you have see him alive ?

[nicked]

I don't think that anybody wants him to solve it. They would just like to hear his valued opinion.

[Westin Landon Cox]

Satoshi's views shouldn't be the deciding factor. But ...

I suspect the recent email really was from Satoshi.

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-August/010238.html

I have been following the recent block size debates through the mailing list.  I had hoped the debate would resolve and that a fork proposal would achieve widespread consensus.  However with the formal release of Bitcoin XT 0.11A, this looks unlikely to happen, and so I am forced to share my concerns about this very dangerous fork.

The developers of this pretender-Bitcoin claim to be following my original vision, but nothing could be further from the truth.  When I designed Bitcoin, I designed it in such a way as to make future modifications to the consensus rules difficult without near unanimous agreement.  Bitcoin was designed to be protected from the influence of charismatic leaders, even if their name is Gavin Andresen, Barack Obama, or Satoshi Nakamoto.  Nearly everyone has to agree on a change, and they have to do it without being forced or pressured into it.  By doing a fork in this way, these developers are violating the "original vision" they claim to honour.

They use my old writings to make claims about what Bitcoin was supposed to be.  However I acknowledge that a lot has changed since that time, and new knowledge has been gained that contradicts some of my early opinions.  For example I didn't anticipate pooled mining and its effects on the security of the network.  Making Bitcoin a competitive monetary system while also preserving its security properties is not a trivial problem, and we should take more time to come up with a robust solution.  I suspect we need a better incentive for users to run nodes instead of relying solely on altruism.

If two developers can fork Bitcoin and succeed in redefining what "Bitcoin" is, in the face of widespread technical criticism and through the use of populist tactics, then I will have no choice but to declare Bitcoin a failed project.  Bitcoin was meant to be both technically and socially robust.  This present situation has been very disappointing to watch unfold.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Doubters said it was from a "hacked" email address, but it was the gmx email that was hacked, not the vistomail email. And the vistomail email address does date back to the beginning of bitcoin.

Doubters said the "real" Satoshi would've signed the message. But Satoshi never signed his messages. And, in any case, signing it would've undermined his message that even he should not be considered a charismatic leader that can make modifications to the consensus rules without near unanimous agreement.

You also need to think about this: If this was really an email from Satoshi and if he has seen how the community has rejected this email to be real since he didn't sign a message, don't you think that he would have sent another email with a signed message.

If he cared enough to send a first email, why wouldn't he care again and send another email just with a signed message this time.

It's hard for me to "think like Satoshi" -- but I doubt he's bothered that people doubted the email was from him. He's more likely to be bothered that the message didn't make a difference. Read this sentence again:

If two developers can fork Bitcoin and succeed in redefining what "Bitcoin" is, in the face of widespread technical criticism and through the use of populist tactics, then I will have no choice but to declare Bitcoin a failed project.

If I were Satoshi and saw the very real possibility that Bitcoin was to be a failed project, then I'd give some kind of warning (like the email above) and then I'd start quietly selling the bitcoins least associated with my identity.