is Greg Maxwell wrong about the block increase?

[jonald_fyookball]

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34090559/

I don't think 1MB is magic; it always exists relative to widely-deployed
technology, sociology, and economics. But these factors aren't a simple
function; the procedure I'd prefer would be something like this: if there
is a standing backlog, we-the-community of users look to indicators to
gauge if the network is losing decentralization and then double the
hard limit with proper controls

This is Greg Maxwell talking about the blocksize increase.

He advocates raising the limit only if there is a "standing backlog"
(and apparently also only if some "indicators say we're losing decentralization")

Not only does that sound dangerous for adoption, but its probably
not as easy as he makes it sound (he posted that in May),
as we're seeing first hand how challenging hard fork consensus is.  

Also, Mike Hearn has suggested it could cause technical problems (nodes crashing).

Greg's other concern seems to be about fees.

While that's important, I don't think it should be a major consideration this early
when coinbase subsidies will likely be greater than fees for
at least a decade, and so not a reason to forestall an increase.

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[knight22]

Being proactive > being reactive IMO.

Waiting for people's transactions being jeopardize before taking action is pretty irresponsible.

[CounterEntropy]

Greg's other concern seems to be about fees.

While that's important, I don't think it should be a major consideration this early
when coinbase subsidies will likely be greater than fees for
at least a decade, and so not a reason to forestall an increase.

Fees concern is well addressed in BIP 1xx. Greg is simply doing whatever it takes to honor the 21m he has taken for BlockStream, i.e. choking the network, so that BlockStream can bloom.

[Mickeyb]

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34090559/

I don't think 1MB is magic; it always exists relative to widely-deployed
technology, sociology, and economics. But these factors aren't a simple
function; the procedure I'd prefer would be something like this: if there
is a standing backlog, we-the-community of users look to indicators to
gauge if the network is losing decentralization and then double the
hard limit with proper controls

This is Greg Maxwell talking about the blocksize increase.

He advocates raising the limit only if there is a "standing backlog"

Not only does that sound dangerous for adoption, but its probably
not as easy as he makes it sound (he posted that in May),
as we're seeing first hand how challenging hard fork consensus is. 

Also, Mike Hearn has suggested it could cause technical problems (nodes crashing).

Greg's other concern seems to be about fees.

While that's important, I don't think it should be a major consideration this early
when coinbase subsidies will likely be greater than fees for
at least a decade, and so not a reason to forestall an increase.

I think this approach is wrong!

One of the last interviews I saw with Andreas Antonopoulos, they asked him about the block size debate and his opinion. He said that he believes in consensus, but that he leans toward the block size increase because of 1 simple thing.

He said that we all hope for mass adoption. Well imagine if there was somebody prominent in China, that advertised Bitcoin and whole nation would see this in TV. Imagine if we would get an influx of 10 million new users over a very short period of time, Bitcoin network would become paralyzed.

I completely agree with him. How can all these devs, Greg Maxwell included, wish for a mass adoption, and not be afraid of scenario like this.

[knight22]

He said that we all hope for mass adoption. Well imagine if there was somebody prominent in China, that advertised Bitcoin and whole nation would see this in TV. Imagine if we would get an influx of 10 million new users over a very short period of time, Bitcoin network would become paralyzed.

Killer app, monetary crisis, mass marketeer, successful remittance company, bull market kickoff....

Just to add to your example.

[alani123]

What would you define standing backlog as? We've already seen backlogs forming during the stress tests. There were some difficulties with low fee transaction speeds but overall it was nothing close to 'jeopardizing' bitcoin. In theory, a backlog could start forming at any given time, but right now most blocks aren't even filled.

[LiteCoinGuy]

Being proactive > being reactive IMO.

Waiting for people's transactions being jeopardize before taking action is pretty irresponsible.

yep, but it is good for blockstreams business 

[Westin Landon Cox]

Being proactive > being reactive IMO.

Waiting for people's transactions being jeopardize before taking action is pretty irresponsible.

yep, but it is good for blockstreams business 

I've seen people from Blockstream argue that bigger blocks would be good for them. Since you're obviously paying close attention to this debate, I'm sure you're familiar with those arguments.

I see a lot of this silly fingerpointing at Blockstream. It sometimes makes me inclined to respond with:

You know, you guys are trying to hand over the Benevolent Dictator role to someone with ties to Google, right? I mean -- Google -- you've heard of them, right? You talk about "21 million dollars" at Blockstream. You realize how tiny that is compared to Google. And

Google is essentially an arm of the NSA

and the corresponding spy agencies in other countries. You know that, right? Are you guys fucking stupid, or what?

Now, I don't respond that way, because I don't see any evidence that Mike Hearn's time at Google is nefarious -- just as there's no evidence that Blockstream is trying to "cripple" Bitcoin. But you guy's will go on saying it. And I'll go on not accusing Mike Hearn of being a Google NSA MI6 mole. But I have to say, you guys make it really difficult to like you. I am honestly starting to think that some of you are just bad people. Bad dishonest people.

[knight22]

Being proactive > being reactive IMO.

Waiting for people's transactions being jeopardize before taking action is pretty irresponsible.

yep, but it is good for blockstreams business  

I've seen people from Blockstream argue that bigger blocks would be good for them. Since you're obviously paying close attention to this debate, I'm sure you're familiar with those arguments.

I see a lot of this silly fingerpointing at Blockstream. It sometimes makes me inclined to respond with:

You know, you guys are trying to hand over the Benevolent Dictator role to someone with ties to Google, right? I mean -- Google -- you've heard of them, right? You talk about "21 million dollars" at Blockstream. You realize how tiny that is compared to Google. And

Google is essentially an arm of the NSA

and the corresponding spy agencies in other countries. You know that, right? Are you guys fucking stupid, or what?

Now, I don't respond that way, because I don't see any evidence that Mike Hearn's time at Google is nefarious -- just as there's no evidence that Blockstream is trying to "cripple" Bitcoin. But you guy's will go on saying it. And I'll go on not accusing Mike Hearn of being a Google NSA MI6 mole. But I have to say, you guys make it really difficult to like you. I am honestly starting to think that some of you are just bad people. Bad dishonest people.

It doesn't change anything to the fact that most Core developers being employed by Blockstream are in a questionable conflict of interest.

[Westin Landon Cox]

Being proactive > being reactive IMO.

Waiting for people's transactions being jeopardize before taking action is pretty irresponsible.

yep, but it is good for blockstreams business  

I've seen people from Blockstream argue that bigger blocks would be good for them. Since you're obviously paying close attention to this debate, I'm sure you're familiar with those arguments.

I see a lot of this silly fingerpointing at Blockstream. It sometimes makes me inclined to respond with:

You know, you guys are trying to hand over the Benevolent Dictator role to someone with ties to Google, right? I mean -- Google -- you've heard of them, right? You talk about "21 million dollars" at Blockstream. You realize how tiny that is compared to Google. And

Google is essentially an arm of the NSA

and the corresponding spy agencies in other countries. You know that, right? Are you guys fucking stupid, or what?

Now, I don't respond that way, because I don't see any evidence that Mike Hearn's time at Google is nefarious -- just as there's no evidence that Blockstream is trying to "cripple" Bitcoin. But you guy's will go on saying it. And I'll go on not accusing Mike Hearn of being a Google NSA MI6 mole. But I have to say, you guys make it really difficult to like you. I am honestly starting to think that some of you are just bad people. Bad dishonest people.

It doesn't change anything to the fact that most Core developers being employed by Blockstream are in a questionable conflict of interest.

You're only demonstrating that you're incapable of a basic level of understanding.

1. Those Core devs had open concerns about raising the block size limit before Blockstream. So their position clearly isn't a consequence of Blockstream's existence.

2. Both sidechains and the lightning network (and LN did not come from Blockstream) would benefit from bigger blocks, so if anything the supposed "conflict of interest" should have caused them to change their opinion.

Now, do you understand those two very basic points or should I type them slower?

[knight22]

You're only demonstrating that you're incapable of a basic level of understanding.

1. Those Core devs had open concerns about raising the block size limit before Blockstream. So their position clearly isn't a consequence of Blockstream's existence.

2. Both sidechains and the lightning network (and LN did not come from Blockstream) would benefit from bigger blocks, so if anything the supposed "conflict of interest" should have caused them to change their opinion.

Now, do you understand those two very basic points or should I type them slower?

Maybe you are right but their inaction speaks louder than any argument they could make at the moment. It's up to them to prove they don't have ill intention even if they are in such position. So far so good they have done nothing to prove it.

[brg444]

You're only demonstrating that you're incapable of a basic level of understanding.

1. Those Core devs had open concerns about raising the block size limit before Blockstream. So their position clearly isn't a consequence of Blockstream's existence.

2. Both sidechains and the lightning network (and LN did not come from Blockstream) would benefit from bigger blocks, so if anything the supposed "conflict of interest" should have caused them to change their opinion.

Now, do you understand those two very basic points or should I type them slower?

Maybe you are right but their inaction speaks louder than any argument they could make at the moment. It's up to them to prove they don't have ill intention even if they are in such position. So far so good they have done nothing to prove it.

Their inaction? Inaction toward what exactly?

What happened to presumption of innocence? How do you expect them to prove they don't have ill intentions?!?

You're a clown.

[jonald_fyookball]

Regardless of the conflict of interest, just looking at Greg's arguments at face value,
they don't strike me as compelling.

[brg444]

Regardless of the conflict of interest, just looking at Greg's arguments at face value,
they don't strike me as compelling.

Can you explain the backlog comment? It's context and what it entails?

You're quoting a couple of lines out of a dozen paragraphs and expect us to take and judge these comments at face value?

[knight22]

Their inaction? Inaction toward what exactly?

The block size limit.

What happened to presumption of innocence? How do you expect them to prove they don't have ill intentions?!?

You must be kidding right? Will you trust anybody on the street with your money under the presumption of innocence? Only a clown would.

[jonald_fyookball]

Regardless of the conflict of interest, just looking at Greg's arguments at face value,
they don't strike me as compelling.

Can you explain the backlog comment? It's context and what it entails?

You're quoting a couple of lines out of a dozen paragraphs and expect us to take and judge these comments at face value?

I think you are trolling and understand perfectly well what a "backlog" of transactions is.

So i'll troll right back at you:  If you're incapable of reading Greg's original post and
making intelligent contributions, then please leave the conversation to the adults.

[brg444]

Their inaction? Inaction toward what exactly?

The block size limit.

What happened to presumption of innocence? How do you expect them to prove they don't have ill intentions?!?

You must be kidding right? Will you trust anybody on the street with your money under the presumption of innocence? Only a clown would.

Of course you are not actually addressing any of my questions.

How do you describe his inaction? Can you provide a detailed outlook of his work in the last 3 months? Have you been reading bitcoin-wizards, the dev list or the entirety of his posts on reddit?



Everyone sees through you. You're a sham

[knight22]

Their inaction? Inaction toward what exactly?

The block size limit.

What happened to presumption of innocence? How do you expect them to prove they don't have ill intentions?!?

You must be kidding right? Will you trust anybody on the street with your money under the presumption of innocence? Only a clown would.

Of course you are not actually addressing any of my questions.

How do you describe his inaction? Can you provide a detailed outlook of his work in the last 3 months? Have you been reading bitcoin-wizards, the dev list or the entirety of his posts on reddit?



Everyone sees through you. You're a sham

Talk is cheap. Blocks are still at 1 mb.

[brg444]

Their inaction? Inaction toward what exactly?

The block size limit.

What happened to presumption of innocence? How do you expect them to prove they don't have ill intentions?!?

You must be kidding right? Will you trust anybody on the street with your money under the presumption of innocence? Only a clown would.

Of course you are not actually addressing any of my questions.

How do you describe his inaction? Can you provide a detailed outlook of his work in the last 3 months? Have you been reading bitcoin-wizards, the dev list or the entirety of his posts on reddit?



Everyone sees through you. You're a sham

Talk is cheap. Blocks are still at 1 mb.

400kb actually 

[Holliday]

Greg has always made a lot of sense to me. He seems to understand the inner workings of Bitcoin far better than most.

as we're seeing first hand how challenging hard fork consensus is.

It's challenging because many of us believe there is no urgency. Instead of some kludgy hack, we would prefer something which promotes both a healthy fee market and decentralization. If I was to err, I would err on the side of decentralization.

Also, Mike Hearn has suggested it could cause technical problems (nodes crashing).

Have you taken the time to read some of the other things Heam has said? There are some real gems in there. Here are two of my favorites regarding fees and block size.

In the absence of a block size cap miners can be supported using network assurance contracts.

Totally agree that we want fees to be zero for as long as possible (or forever).

So... we will secure the network with "network assurance contracts". We'll does anyone have an example of a functioning "network assurance contract" or should we just go along with Heam and hope for the best? I guess people simply paying fees for their transactions is a ridiculous idea. Let's not K.I.S.S., let's make it far more complicated than it needs to be! Complication certainly helps with decentralization, right?

I think most "bitcoiners" have been spoiled by the early high block subsidy days of free to near free transactions. I know I've sung the praises of low cost transactions in the past. Yet, Bitcoin is censorship-proof money. How much are you willing to pay for that? I'm personally willing to pay upwards of $100 per transaction and wait a week or more for it to clear simply because I know that it can't be stopped by an authority or middleman. Of course, I don't think using censorship-proof money in order to buy my morning coffee is the best tool for the job. It's like using a chainsaw to cut down a dandelion. I'm perfectly happy with centralized solutions for daily spending. What we need is the Bitcoin system to function as censorship-proof money when we actually need censorship-proof money!

A lot of people on this forum act like there are no trade-offs in life. Can we have censorship-proof money that scales like VISA? Probably not. So mainstreamers better be careful what they ask for.

If, in the future, there is a technological way to achieve censorship-proof money that scales like VISA, I'm all for it. I personally don't think that massive blocks are the correct answer at this time. If we need to make slight adjustments to the maximum block size to buy us some time, so be it.