is Greg Maxwell wrong about the block increase?

[johnyj]

What the block size debate reflected is a serials of consideration about the design philosophy behind a decentralized monetary system

To serve others or let others serve you, that is the question

The Federal Reserve never care about average users transaction demand, their interbank settlement system is old and slow, but they just print tons of money and people still worship them and happily use dollar everywhere. People even invented paypal, visa, master card to do thousands of transactions per second to help them to spread their money. Why?  It's effect of authority, their authority gains average people's trust, they don't need to sort out the rest of the technical details

Similarly, if bitcoin can establish such authority image in the eyes of average user, any technical problem will be solved by people voluntarily

Would more decentralization and censorship resistant raise its authority or more transaction capacity raise its authority? Kind of both, but I think decentralization holds higher priority

[1713586446]

1713586446

[1713586446]

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[1713586446]

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[meono]

What the block size debate reflected is a serials of consideration about the design philosophy behind a decentralized monetary system

To serve others or let others serve you, that is the question

The Federal Reserve never care about average users transaction demand, their interbank settlement system is old and slow, but they just print tons of money and people still worship them and happily use dollar everywhere. People even invented paypal, visa, master card to do thousands of transactions per second to help them to spread their money. Why?  It's effect of authority, their authority gains average people's trust, they don't need to sort out the rest of the technical details

Similarly, if bitcoin can establish such authority image in the eyes of average user, any technical problem will be solved by people voluntarily

Would more decentralization and censorship resistant raise its authority or more transaction capacity raise its authority? Kind of both, but I think decentralization holds higher priority

I like how you balantly ignore that bitcoin core is already centralized. I love how you conclude that blocksize increase means less decentralization when almost every new bitcoin users use spv client.

Meanwhile you implied having addons like paypal somehow improves decentralization. Stupid much? Or you're just having brain fart as usual.

[poeEDgar]

decentralization holds higher priority

Sing it.

Anyway, what's gotten into you people? What is all this panic about? Am I crazy or are we not even pushing .5MB blocks on average? The only thing irrational panic will cause is irrational decisions. Seems like that's what XT is about.....making people believe there is one option: raise the limit, take the first option available and do it immediately in case a billion people adopt bitcoin tomorrow. Thank goodness people now realize there are other BIPs, and more to come.

With my rudimentary understanding of large scale systems..... I will say that it's almost offensive that people are suggesting that what is true in the context of a 1MB block limit is true in the context of an 8GB block limit. I'll defer to the experts on the details, but security is paramount. Allowing limitless, or near-limitless scaling could be a nightmare.....it could cause the number of full nodes to plunge due to cost, it could cause block propagation times to skyrocket and result in much higher volume of orphaned blocks.....it could literally cut off entire regions of miners and full nodes if bandwidth limitations do not improve to the level of capacity increases...... more importantly, it can and will cause a multitude of problems that we have not even thought of yet -- since bitcoin has never been tested under such conditions.

A 2X increase would allow ample time for us to study the issues that come with scaling and address them. An 8000X increase, hard-coded? Good luck.

And using Moore's Law to predict transaction volume, really? That's a fucking insult to any thinking person. So now a failing theory on processor capacity is the basis to predict capacity needs in a social system? I think Gavin Anderson should take Logic 101, even if he's dead set on believing in Moore's Law (which is sort of laughable).

This whole thing is a like a sick joke..... it's like people are using their fantasies of exponential adoption and $100k bitcoins and using zero foresight to push something that could end up completely destroying confidence in bitcoin.....

Without security, your bitcoins are worthless. BIP101 supporters, can you guarantee the security of the network at 8GB block limit? Of course you can't. Bitcoin has spent its entire life with blocks at considerably less than 1MB. Have you ever considered what happens when a tick-tock model begins outrunning our abilities to support it?

Oh, sure. We can soft fork the limit down after a magnificent fuck-up that cripples confidence in bitcoin. Can you ensure that transactions aren't rolled back? Double spends won't be performed? Have you any idea how much money could be lost due to this reckless idiocy?

Basically, the totality of reasoning behind the recklessness of BIP101 are these words from Gavin Anderson:

I woulda thunk you were old enough to be confident that technology DOES improve. In fits and starts, but over the long term it definitely gets better.

[brg444]

What the block size debate reflected is a serials of consideration about the design philosophy behind a decentralized monetary system

To serve others or let others serve you, that is the question

The Federal Reserve never care about average users transaction demand, their interbank settlement system is old and slow, but they just print tons of money and people still worship them and happily use dollar everywhere. People even invented paypal, visa, master card to do thousands of transactions per second to help them to spread their money. Why?  It's effect of authority, their authority gains average people's trust, they don't need to sort out the rest of the technical details

Similarly, if bitcoin can establish such authority image in the eyes of average user, any technical problem will be solved by people voluntarily

Would more decentralization and censorship resistant raise its authority or more transaction capacity raise its authority? Kind of both, but I think decentralization holds higher priority

I like how you balantly ignore that bitcoin core is already centralized. I love how you conclude that blocksize increase means less decentralization when almost every new bitcoin users use spv client.

Meanwhile you implied having addons like paypal somehow improves decentralization. Stupid much? Or you're just having brain fart as usual.

On that subject, I am posting this here for observers to understand this is a misrepresentation of the dynamics at stake and a disingenuous lie:

It is known that ~90% (at least of the nodes accepting incoming connections) are running Bitcoin Core software. This does not mean that Bitcoin is somehow less decentralized. Bitcoin Core is open source, it has many contributors from all over the world and there are many pull requests - most of them do get merged if you check the commit history. It is widely used because the quality of the code is 5 stars. There are other implementations as well, they are just not widely used. This does not mean one is not free to write his own implementation of the Bitcoin protocol (assuming he follows the consensus rules of the network). The biggest problem is convincing users to adopt that implementation, which is a normal thing which happens in general, not only related to software implementations.

The problem is there is no other implementation out there which comes near the quality of the code in Bitcoin Core. I am actually eager to try other implementations as well, but something serious, because Bitcoin itself is a payment protocol not something to play with.

This is the reason why a lot of developers contribute to Bitcoin Core rather than writing their own implementation. This only makes Bitcoin Core stronger, better, and obviously the result is that it has majority in the ecosystem for good reasons. If I'm experienced in a certain segment related to software developing, I am better of in contributing to Bitcoin Core just with the part I know instead of writing from scratch my own implementation.

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-August/010796.html

[S4VV4S]

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.

Sorry, but how do you expect them to prove they don't have ill intention?
Give the funding money back?
Quit from Blockstream?

And how would they make a living then?
Your donations?

What about Gavin and Mike Hearn?
How do they prove they don't have ill intentions?
Didn't they try to pass a blacklisting code in their version of a Bitcoin client?

Now, when you answer all above questions, please explain to me WHY do all of you still argue and fight each other when you can easily modify the code (with only a slight block increase)?

It's because you guys want to be governed.
It's either Gavin or the rest of the devs, right?
I completely forgot that Bitcoin is decentralized, and thank God we have the above mentioned options.....

[jonald_fyookball]

I think in addition to the possible conflicts of interest surrounding
blockstream, the core Bitcoin development process itself is broken. 
Gavin talked about this recently and mentioned it used to be
he would just make decisions if the team couldn't agree, but
he has stepped down from doing that.

So, it may partially be intentional stonewalling by blockstream devs, and may also be partially the fact
that there's no clear way to move forward with changes that are controversial,
which is why I think multiple implementations such as XT are a good thing.

[Peter R]

I think in addition to the possible conflicts of interest surrounding
blockstream, the core Bitcoin development process itself is broken.  
Gavin talked about this recently and mentioned it used to be
he would just make decisions if the team couldn't agree, but
he has stepped down from doing that.

So, it may partially be intentional stonewalling by blockstream devs, and may also be partially the fact
that there's no clear way to move forward with changes that are controversial,
which is why I think multiple implementations such as XT are a good thing.

I don't understand the worry about multiple implementations--especially if most fork from Core (like XT did).  This seems like a great way to make progress and return the power of choice back to the user base.  

I started a thread on this topic in bitcoin-dev with the provocative title "Let's kill Bitcoin Core and allow the green shoots of a garden of new implementations to grow from its fertile ashes."  Adam Back, Greg Maxwell and Wladimir seem to think it's a bad idea (I disagree):

Adam: http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-September/010809.html
Greg: http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-September/010803.html
Wladimir: http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-September/010816.html

[jonald_fyookball]

I think in addition to the possible conflicts of interest surrounding
blockstream, the core Bitcoin development process itself is broken.  
Gavin talked about this recently and mentioned it used to be
he would just make decisions if the team couldn't agree, but
he has stepped down from doing that.

So, it may partially be intentional stonewalling by blockstream devs, and may also be partially the fact
that there's no clear way to move forward with changes that are controversial,
which is why I think multiple implementations such as XT are a good thing.

I don't understand the worry about multiple implementations--especially if most fork from Core (like XT did).  This seems like a great way to make progress and return the power of choice back to the user base.  

I started a thread on this topic in bitcoin-dev with the provocative title "Let's kill Bitcoin Core and allow the green shoots of a garden of new implementations to grow from its fertile ashes."  Adam Back, Greg Maxwell and Wladimir seem to think it's a bad idea (I disagree):

Adam: http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-September/010809.html
Greg: http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-September/010803.html
Wladimir: http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-September/010816.html

Peter, I definitely applaud your efforts with getting involved in Bitcoin development.
For sure, we need knowledgable people like you giving checks and balances.

I think Adam has some fair points there and alerts us of things to be careful of,
however needless to say he may be biased just as Greg is. 

Interestingly, Greg's comment seems to give tacit approval to alternate implementations.

Personally, I don't think we should "kill" core  but simply keep growing Bitcoin
and try to formalize and document the protocol.

[hdbuck]

lol because this peter r does somehow qualify to post in the dev mailing list..

what are your bitcoin contribution? who are you?

plz stop wasting the core devs precious time, spilling your egomaniac shitful fud everywhere.

[notbatman]

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

You've hit the nail on the head there.


School me with BIP101? Put on your concrete galoshes and go jump in lake fancy boys!

#rekt

[Peter R]

lol because this peter r does somehow qualify to post in the dev mailing list..

what are your bitcoin contribution? who are you?

plz stop wasting the core devs precious time, spilling your egomaniac shitful fud everywhere.

Well, I've made zero code contributions to Bitcoin Core.

Regarding what qualifies for posting on the dev mailing list, in the future I'd prefer to see this channel reserved for lower-level code development.  Higher-level discourse on topics that are academic in nature (scientific research, policy development, governance, etc.) would probably be better suited to a more formal and interdisciplinary communication channel, with wider dissemination and rigorous peer review.  Unfortunately, no such outlet is yet available.

Expect to hear an announcement about an exciting initiative to begin addressing this in the next few weeks.  

[hdbuck]

lol because this peter r does somehow qualify to post in the dev mailing list..

what are your bitcoin contribution? who are you?

plz stop wasting the core devs precious time, spilling your egomaniac shitful fud everywhere.

Well, I've made zero code contributions to Bitcoin Core.

-stupid self talking crap-

There, now move along.

[knight22]

lol because this peter r does somehow qualify to post in the dev mailing list..

what are your bitcoin contribution? who are you?

plz stop wasting the core devs precious time, spilling your egomaniac shitful fud everywhere.

Well, I've made zero code contributions to Bitcoin Core.

-stupid self talking crap-

There, now move along.

From all the people in this forum you are probably the least interesting.

[Peter R]

Peter, I definitely applaud your efforts with getting involved in Bitcoin development.
For sure, we need knowledgable people like you giving checks and balances.

I think Adam has some fair points there and alerts us of things to be careful of,
however needless to say he may be biased just as Greg is. 

Interestingly, Greg's comment seems to give tacit approval to alternate implementations.

Thank you for the compliment, Jonald.  I was surprised to see Greg's tacit approval for the idea, actually.  The concerns Adam brought up are fair, like you said, and something new forks from Bitcoin Core (like XT) need to be aware of.   

Personally, I don't think we should "kill" core  but simply keep growing Bitcoin
and try to formalize and document the protocol.

Just poking the bear

[trashman43]

decentralization holds higher priority

Sing it.

Anyway, what's gotten into you people? What is all this panic about? Am I crazy or are we not even pushing .5MB blocks on average? The only thing irrational panic will cause is irrational decisions. Seems like that's what XT is about.....making people believe there is one option: raise the limit, take the first option available and do it immediately in case a billion people adopt bitcoin tomorrow. Thank goodness people now realize there are other BIPs, and more to come.

With my rudimentary understanding of large scale systems..... I will say that it's almost offensive that people are suggesting that what is true in the context of a 1MB block limit is true in the context of an 8GB block limit. I'll defer to the experts on the details, but security is paramount. Allowing limitless, or near-limitless scaling could be a nightmare.....it could cause the number of full nodes to plunge due to cost, it could cause block propagation times to skyrocket and result in much higher volume of orphaned blocks.....it could literally cut off entire regions of miners and full nodes if bandwidth limitations do not improve to the level of capacity increases...... more importantly, it can and will cause a multitude of problems that we have not even thought of yet -- since bitcoin has never been tested under such conditions.

A 2X increase would allow ample time for us to study the issues that come with scaling and address them. An 8000X increase, hard-coded? Good luck.

And using Moore's Law to predict transaction volume, really? That's a fucking insult to any thinking person. So now a failing theory on processor capacity is the basis to predict capacity needs in a social system? I think Gavin Anderson should take Logic 101, even if he's dead set on believing in Moore's Law (which is sort of laughable).

This whole thing is a like a sick joke..... it's like people are using their fantasies of exponential adoption and $100k bitcoins and using zero foresight to push something that could end up completely destroying confidence in bitcoin.....

Without security, your bitcoins are worthless. BIP101 supporters, can you guarantee the security of the network at 8GB block limit? Of course you can't. Bitcoin has spent its entire life with blocks at considerably less than 1MB. Have you ever considered what happens when a tick-tock model begins outrunning our abilities to support it?

Oh, sure. We can soft fork the limit down after a magnificent fuck-up that cripples confidence in bitcoin. Can you ensure that transactions aren't rolled back? Double spends won't be performed? Have you any idea how much money could be lost due to this reckless idiocy?

Basically, the totality of reasoning behind the recklessness of BIP101 are these words from Gavin Anderson:

I woulda thunk you were old enough to be confident that technology DOES improve. In fits and starts, but over the long term it definitely gets better.

+1

nuff said

[Zarathustra]

lol because this peter r does somehow qualify to post in the dev mailing list..

what are your bitcoin contribution? who are you?

plz stop wasting the core devs precious time, spilling your egomaniac shitful fud everywhere.

Well, I've made zero code contributions to Bitcoin Core.

-stupid self talking crap-

There, now move along.

From all the people in this forum you are probably the least interesting.

Indeed.

[hdbuck]

lol because this peter r does somehow qualify to post in the dev mailing list..

what are your bitcoin contribution? who are you?

plz stop wasting the core devs precious time, spilling your egomaniac shitful fud everywhere.

Well, I've made zero code contributions to Bitcoin Core.

-stupid self talking crap-

There, now move along.

From all the people in this forum you are probably the least interesting.

dont even know why i take the time to respond but there you go:



now you are on ignore. bye

[johnyj]

Would more decentralization and censorship resistant raise its authority or more transaction capacity raise its authority? Kind of both, but I think decentralization holds higher priority

I like how you blatantly ignore that bitcoin core is already centralized. I love how you conclude that blocksize increase means less decentralization when almost every new bitcoin users use spv client.

Meanwhile you implied having addons like paypal somehow improves decentralization. Stupid much? Or you're just having brain fart as usual.

Indeed, the bitcoin development is already centralized, but at least a group of core devs can still balance each other. But if you go for the XT branch which have exclusive leadership under Gavin, then you better understand what you are doing. Here are some text you should check about the governance model in GIT:

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/inside-the-fight-over-bitcoins-future

"Theoretically, any user of an open-source program is free to create, adopt, or reject any alterations he pleases; in practice, software shared on networks or between users requires painstaking standardization. This means relying on decision-makers with “commit access,” who have the right to amend a software project directly, on their own. This status represents a high level of developer control, and of user trust.

Andresen told me that, to his recollection, when Nakamoto withdrew from the project (and from public view), in 2011, only he, Nakamoto, and possibly one other person had commit access to Bitcoin’s software. Andresen eventually granted this level of access to four additional developers, for a total of five “core devs.” In April, 2014, Andresen decided to devote more of his time to other projects, and named one of the core devs, Wladimir van der Laan, to succeed him as lead developer. Even today, only van der Laan and Andresen can grant commit access to other developers of Bitcoin Core.

“Right now,” Andresen added, “just Mike and I have commit access to Bitcoin XT.”

"In the absence of institutions capable of implementing clear standards, it’s plain that Andresen and Hearn decided to take matters into their own hands. XT is above all a path toward establishing new leadership. I asked Andresen whether, if XT were to achieve full acceptance, he would then include all the earlier Bitcoin core devs in the new XT team. He replied that “[XT] will have a different set of developers. Part of the reason for forking is to have a clear decision-making process for the software development.”

[meono]

Would more decentralization and censorship resistant raise its authority or more transaction capacity raise its authority? Kind of both, but I think decentralization holds higher priority

I like how you blatantly ignore that bitcoin core is already centralized. I love how you conclude that blocksize increase means less decentralization when almost every new bitcoin users use spv client.

Meanwhile you implied having addons like paypal somehow improves decentralization. Stupid much? Or you're just having brain fart as usual.

Indeed, the bitcoin development is already centralized, but at least a group of core devs can still balance each other. But if you go for the XT branch which have exclusive leadership under Gavin, then you better understand what you are doing. Here are some text you should check about the governance model in GIT:

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/inside-the-fight-over-bitcoins-future

"Theoretically, any user of an open-source program is free to create, adopt, or reject any alterations he pleases; in practice, software shared on networks or between users requires painstaking standardization. This means relying on decision-makers with “commit access,” who have the right to amend a software project directly, on their own. This status represents a high level of developer control, and of user trust.

Andresen told me that, to his recollection, when Nakamoto withdrew from the project (and from public view), in 2011, only he, Nakamoto, and possibly one other person had commit access to Bitcoin’s software. Andresen eventually granted this level of access to four additional developers, for a total of five “core devs.” In April, 2014, Andresen decided to devote more of his time to other projects, and named one of the core devs, Wladimir van der Laan, to succeed him as lead developer. Even today, only van der Laan and Andresen can grant commit access to other developers of Bitcoin Core.

“Right now,” Andresen added, “just Mike and I have commit access to Bitcoin XT.”

"In the absence of institutions capable of implementing clear standards, it’s plain that Andresen and Hearn decided to take matters into their own hands. XT is above all a path toward establishing new leadership. I asked Andresen whether, if XT were to achieve full acceptance, he would then include all the earlier Bitcoin core devs in the new XT team. He replied that “[XT] will have a different set of developers. Part of the reason for forking is to have a clear decision-making process for the software development.”

If you can stop assuming everyone is an idiot but you then we can have a conversation.

Just maybe you're not as smart as everyone else? Ever think of that?

FYI, the ability to choose different implementation is the first step of having decentralized development. If you cant grasp this fact, go think about it some more. Having how many numbers of devs behind an implementation does not matter if you cant have another to choose.


Also are you ignoring my other question? That blocksize increase cause more centralization in the bitcoin network?

 

[poeEDgar]

People seem confused. The protocol is decentralized, and ideally will stay that way. The development process has never been and does not need to be decentralized. That's completely irrelevant to the protocol. People are free to develop whatever they want, but the purpose of consensus is to make contentious hard forks unlikely. I have no problem with a non-Core development team, but I wouldn't expect that severely untested code which has not been achieved through any formal consensus would be backed by even a modicum of hashing power.