is Greg Maxwell wrong about the block increase?

[jonald_fyookball]

Holliday,

I hear what you are saying about urgency. 
Yes, consensus may be easier when the
situation is more dire.  It's also easier to
motivate oneself to finally see the dentist
when one's teeth are falling out.  Waiting
till there is "a standing backlog" seems to
be as far extreme as you can get. 

As far as Mike Hearn, I do not dispute
that he has said questionable things.
Still, he brings up a point that overloading
the nodes may be problematic.

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[knight22]

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.

Why scaling bitcoin would make it be less censorship-free?
One can also argue than having to pay 100$ fee just to send a transaction is a form of censorship and exclusion. Anyhow, bitcoin is much more than just censorship-free money.

[brg444]

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.

Why scaling bitcoin would make it be less censorship-free?
One can also argue than having to pay 100$ fee just to send a transaction is a form of censorship and exclusion. Anyhow, bitcoin is much more than just censorship-free money.

Paying the market price for a scarce unit is not censorship. You wanna make it free we get it but that's just not possible. "Trade offs"

Maybe we stop wasting everyone's time and you recognize increasing the block size is not how Bitcoin is going to scale.

Behaving like an imbecile arguing to ignorance has certain limits. You are crossing them.

Bitcoin is about censorship free money. For everything else there's Mastercard.

[marky89]

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.

Why scaling bitcoin would make it be less censorship-free?
One can also argue than having to pay 100$ fee just to send a transaction is a form of censorship and exclusion. Anyhow, bitcoin is much more than just censorship-free money.

Well, how would you define it? For me, bitcoin's value is in being a decentralized, transferable token in limited supply. Essential to maintaining that definition is robust network security (and by proxy, a strong emphasis on consensus).

Do you believe that at no point, exponential scaling might result in serious threats to a) decentralization, and b) network security? Keep in mind that bitcoin has never scaled beyond a 1MB block limit (of course, on average it is nowhere near reaching this limit to begin with), and BIP 101 suggests scaling 8000x.

[knight22]

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.

Why scaling bitcoin would make it be less censorship-free?
One can also argue than having to pay 100$ fee just to send a transaction is a form of censorship and exclusion. Anyhow, bitcoin is much more than just censorship-free money.

Well, how would you define it? For me, bitcoin's value is in being a decentralized, transferable token in limited supply. Essential to maintaining that definition is robust network security (and by proxy, a strong emphasis on consensus).

Do you believe that at no point, exponential scaling might result in serious threats to a) decentralization, and b) network security? Keep in mind that bitcoin has never scaled beyond a 1MB block limit (of course, on average it is nowhere near reaching this limit to begin with), and BIP 101 suggests scaling 8000x.

You can also add permisionless programmable money in your value set.

Of course infinite exponential growth is unrealistic, dangerous but also unneeded. We only need exponential growth during the adoption phase then stabilization.  I think the risks of centralization is overblown. There is an incentive by market participants (individuals and businesses) to run full nodes for a fairly cheap price. To give the market a predictable growth also gives it the opportunity to come up with scaling solutions as running full nodes. https://bitseed.org/ is a good example of that. I’m all in favor to give the market the opportunity to solves every technical problems that will arise with scalability. Saying it is impossible is as bold as saying the byzantine generals problem was impossible to solve or the internet was impossible to scale.

[Holliday]

Waiting till there is "a standing backlog" seems to be as far extreme as you can get. 

As far as I am concerned, there is nothing extreme about a standing backlog of no-fee-paid or extremely-low-fee-paid transactions. That seems pretty normal actually. You get what you pay for. If you want to ride the free roller coaster, you may have to stand in line waiting for your turn.

[Holliday]

Why scaling bitcoin would make it be less censorship-free?

Well, does the solution allow full nodes to function over anonymizing networks like ToR, for example.

One can also argue than having to pay 100$ fee just to send a transaction is a form of censorship and exclusion.

People are certainly liberal with the use of the word "censorship" these days. If you want to argue that market forces are censorship, perhaps you should start another thread.

Anyhow, bitcoin is much more than just censorship-free money.

Maybe we are getting to the crux of the divide. Bitcoin is different things for different people. So it's expected that they would argue for changes that enhance a particular property.

I look at it like this. What does Bitcoin allow me to do that nothing else on the planet allows me to do. Those properties are what I consider Bitcoin's real strengths.

[jonald_fyookball]

Waiting till there is "a standing backlog" seems to be as far extreme as you can get. 

As far as I am concerned, there is nothing extreme about a standing backlog of no-fee-paid or extremely-low-fee-paid transactions. That seems pretty normal actually. You get what you pay for. If you want to ride the free roller coaster, you may have to stand in line waiting for your turn.

Ok, but what if there's a backlog of normal fee transactions?  Waiting till there's a backlog of those sounds reasonable to you?

[Mickeyb]

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.

Well exactly this, there are many things that could happen and trigger even a much higher adoption, if not a mass adoption. We never know what tomorrow brings and I would rather be ready for this very possible increase, than caught off guard and have a Bitcoin network paralysed.

And also to add, can we all imagine, what kind of message would this paralysis send to all of the newcomers!

[knight22]

Why scaling bitcoin would make it be less censorship-free?

Well, does the solution allow full nodes to function over anonymizing networks like ToR, for example.

I think you are confusing BIP101 and XT here. This arguable DDOS protection implemented in XT has nothing to do with scaling issues...

Anyhow, bitcoin is much more than just censorship-free money.

Maybe we are getting to the crux of the divide. Bitcoin is different things for different people. So it's expected that they would argue for changes that enhance a particular property.

I look at it like this. What does Bitcoin allow me to do that nothing else on the planet allows me to do. Those properties are what I consider Bitcoin's real strengths.

Bitcoin is indeed a lot of thing for a lot of people and should stay as such because it is what makes its strength but I fail to see why scaling it would/should change any of this.

[jonald_fyookball]

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.

Why scaling bitcoin would make it be less censorship-free?
One can also argue than having to pay 100$ fee just to send a transaction is a form of censorship and exclusion. Anyhow, bitcoin is much more than just censorship-free money.

Well, how would you define it? For me, bitcoin's value is in being a decentralized, transferable token in limited supply. Essential to maintaining that definition is robust network security (and by proxy, a strong emphasis on consensus).

Do you believe that at no point, exponential scaling might result in serious threats to a) decentralization, and b) network security? Keep in mind that bitcoin has never scaled beyond a 1MB block limit (of course, on average it is nowhere near reaching this limit to begin with), and BIP 101 suggests scaling 8000x.

I'm sure there will be challenges but no one has presented a reason they couldn't be overcome.  We aren't there yet.

While Bip 101 may or may not be the best solution, I think the "lets wait till we have a backlog and then deal with it" approach can't be good.

[nutildah]

We have at least 2 more years before the block size limit actually starts mattering on a significant scale:

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1

The moving average for this years block size has been about 0.4 - 0.44 MBs.

So Gavin couldn't negotiate with the core devs any longer and had to get his coin out ASAP because... why?

The fact that he is backed by a throng of finance industry CEOs diminishes merit from his arguments. We don't care what the already-rich think. Bitcoin isn't for them.

[knight22]

We have at least 2 more years before the block size limit actually starts mattering on a significant scale:

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1

The moving average for this years block size has been about 0.4 - 0.44 MBs.

So Gavin couldn't negotiate with the core devs any longer and had to get his coin out ASAP because... why?

The fact that he is backed by a throng of finance industry CEOs diminishes merit from his arguments. We don't care what the already-rich think. Bitcoin isn't for them.

Because big boys are asking so and won't wait any longer for obvious reasons. The limit also limit these companies to mass marketeer their products.

http://blog.blockchain.com/2015/08/24/industry-endorses-bigger-blocks-and-bip101/

[nutildah]

Because big boys are asking so and won't wait any longer for obvious reasons. The limit also limit these companies to mass marketeer their products.

http://blog.blockchain.com/2015/08/24/industry-endorses-bigger-blocks-and-bip101/

The right thing to do would be to not cave into their selfish demands.

They clearly have only their own pockets in mind.

[knight22]

Because big boys are asking so and won't wait any longer for obvious reasons. The limit also limit these companies to mass marketeer their products.

http://blog.blockchain.com/2015/08/24/industry-endorses-bigger-blocks-and-bip101/

The right thing to do would be to not cave into their selfish demands.

They clearly have only their own pockets in mind.

Well, bitcoin is money. What do you expect? You expect these companies that have invested millions to run at a loss without making profits forever? You expect them to loose their investment without doing anything because bitcoin doesn't scale ? Ignoring the needs of market participants is the right thing to do?

[hdbuck]

Being proactive > being reactive IMO.

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

maxwell makes perfect sense. not like you qualify to reassess his judgement anyway.

but plz, go on to your infinite bloatchain... the sooner the better

[knight22]

Being proactive > being reactive IMO.

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

[img]-snip-[img]


maxwell makes perfect sense.

anyway, go on to your infinite bloatchain... the sooner the better

Another post with no substance?

[nutildah]

Well, bitcoin is money. What do you expect? You expect these companies that have invested millions to run at a loss without making profits forever? You expect them to loose their investment without doing anything because bitcoin doesn't scale ? Ignoring the needs of market participants is the right thing to do?

I really could care less what they do. Most of them will fail and be gone in a couple of years, anyway.

Bitcoin already works with or without them.

[knight22]

Well, bitcoin is money. What do you expect? You expect these companies that have invested millions to run at a loss without making profits forever? You expect them to loose their investment without doing anything because bitcoin doesn't scale ? Ignoring the needs of market participants is the right thing to do?

I really could care less what they do. Most of them will fail and be gone in a couple of years, anyway.

Bitcoin already works with or without them.

So I guess it's ok to ignore them for your selfish goal?

[brg444]

Because big boys are asking so and won't wait any longer for obvious reasons. The limit also limit these companies to mass marketeer their products.

http://blog.blockchain.com/2015/08/24/industry-endorses-bigger-blocks-and-bip101/

The right thing to do would be to not cave into their selfish demands.

They clearly have only their own pockets in mind.

Well, bitcoin is money. What do you expect? You expect these companies that have invested millions to run at a loss without making profits forever? You expect them to loose their investment without doing anything because bitcoin doesn't scale ?

These companies were sold by Gavin & Mike the idea that "bitcoin doesn't scale" and that their business will suffer because of it. They are somehow under the impression that current block size impedes their growth and is a danger to the future growth they themselves sold to their investors.

Growth projection is a very tricky thing but if we are to believe the current trend we are still quite below the current limit and should stay so for awhile. There was no reasonable basis for those so-called industry "leaders" to precipitate the issue and stand behind one "solution" when it was clear the model had considerable opposition from various actors in the ecosystem. Especially seeing as the Scaling Bitcoin workshops had shown encouraging signs that a legitimate resolution process was starting to take place that could hopefully reconcile everyone and re-establish consensus.

This is simply a hack job of lobbying by the XT developers to force the issue by pulling strings using their industry influence.