Blocksize needs to be increased now.

[johnyj]

There is exponential growth looming in front of us, and if we wait too long, bitcoin will miss it's chance to start booming.

Average blocksize is already growing exponentially. You can see that quite clearly from the linear trend in this log chart.
https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7&timespan=all&scale=1&address=

Another important point most people are missing is the fact that the average block size will not peak at 1MB. At least not in the foreseeable future. And the reason for this is quite simple. Miners get almost all of their income from block reward rather than from fees so their main goal is to find a valid block asap. Filling it with transactions is only a secondary goal. If you check the blockchain you'll find many blocks like this one:
https://blockchain.info/block/00000000000000000a680d0736b971c40243dcab764ba7dc4a591b900e9c5a70
There is only the coinbase transaction. The chances of the mempool being empty when this block was mined are virtually 0. And there are many others.

Miners incentive to include transactions in blocks will grow as block rewards drops significantly but this will happen in the distant future. Average fees per block is around 0.25 BTC while block rewards is 25 BTC. That's x100. 

So even if the block size limit is 1MB we will start to see confirmation delays and fee inflation with average block size well below 1MB.

True, as long as miners get block subsidy, they will only include transactions if those transactions do not increase their chance of being orphaned. And this will be the case for decades to come, thus make the fee income always small comparing to block subsidy (fee per block = block subsidy x orphan risk)  Is there any chance the fee will rise to replace block subsidy?

I just read a good opinion: Someone pointed out that miners have their own economy wisdom, so when they do the planning, they will calculate the reduce of block subsidy in their business model, thus either deploy more efficient miners (which helps short term wise), or seeking ways to cut maintenance/electricity cost (long term wise). In fact, even without block subsidy reduce, a 50% of jump in difficulty gives exactly the same impact, and I think they are all used to this kind of impact from time to time, so they are very well prepared. This is not something core devs should worry about

[johnyj]

The ultimate question is: If blocksize does not increase, will bitcoin die?

I think the answer is a definite NO

The spam attack during October was a good test. It almost filled every block as much as it can, but we just heard little complains from people sending small amount of bitcoins, majority of the users are not affected. This showed how flexible people are when blocks are full. Most important: The exchange rate of bitcoin was not affected by this kind of full blocks

Unlike normal IT business that striving for reaching 100% customer satisfaction, bitcoin is a monetary system. It is no way that FED is striving for average people's satisfaction for their monetary system. In fact, they sacrificed the benefit for almost every one but everyone in the society still adapt to their system and be happy

It is similar here, you should let people to adapt to bitcoin instead of letting bitcoin adapt to people, because bitcoin is money. Service oriented mindset of programmers comes from that they are typically an employee servicing a large enterprise, which in turn provide service for consumers. While the view from FED is different, they create money, every one else beg them for money, so their task is not to make customer happy, but make their money as trustworthy as possible

From this point of view, if something reduce the trustworthy of bitcoin, then it is negative. For example a security hole, an uncertain architecture, or split core devs, these all have negative impact. As long as bitcoin is as robust as gold, I think people will always be attracted and find solutions to solve the capacity problem. The motivation of using bitcoin definitely not comes from its cheap and fast transaction capacity

Imagine that every one uses bitcoin as their retirement fund, how frequent they are going to use bitcoin network? once a month for purchasing, and after decades, once a month for withdraw

[RealBitcoin]

Bitcoin might get a higher fee, but it will never lose its most significant appeal in the long run: Long term saving and international remittance

Let's be honest: Bitcoin will never be able to compete with those fast&cheap mobile/3rd party payment solutions that charges 0 transaction fee and instant confirmation (you even get some bonus when using them), and the possibility of refund

For example, Sweden has already over 50% of population use mobile payment. So all of these users will feel angry when they need to pay a fee  to use bitcoin to spend, besides all the hassles about exchange into and out of bitcoin

So, even if you make bitcoin 0 transaction fee + instant confirmation + refund, people would still not use bitcoin to spend, because they gain nothing from switching from existing mobile payment solutions to bitcoin. People who care about bitcoin mostly attracted by its deflative nature for value storage, and they usually buy large amount of coins, so the fee is the least concern for them (I have seen these people paying 5-10% above market price to get 1-2 bitcoin, do you think they really care about the current level of fee?)

If you consider its major advantage against existing financial system, it is clear that the best marketing for bitcoin is either its exchange rate rises (for long term saving), or more and more exchanges are available in each country (for international remittance)

Yea but thats not really why users use bitcoin now.

I get that bitcoin has like 10 features that are appealing but most people use bitcoin only for 2 things:  get money online, send money online.

You can already earn fiat money on various sites, and if banks really make TX instant, it will be a big blowback to bitcoin.


I think it will be a big blowback, most people dont care about financial privacy, and control over money anyway

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

Because raising the blocksize to 8MB out of nowhere is way more risky than staying with 1 while we search for ways to scale Bitcoin properly (raising the blocksize will never properly scale Bitcoin, not without something like LN). We don't want datacenters running nodes, we want to be able to run nodes on a single computer, what's so hard to get about this? That's the real sabotage, centralized nodes.

Dude, the 8 MB limit is not each and ever block. If the cap is 8mb, and the current block size is 0.5 mb , then 0.5 mb blocks will circulate. The 8mb block is only the cap limit, not the default size.


Therefore the block structure won't really be destroyed, it's not like you have to reformat earlier blocks to all have the identical size. Even now block sizes vary so that's not an issue.


But what you are doing here is artificially not letting the block size go up, and when the limit is hit, then people will compete for the empty space, so the TX fee will massively go up, and most people cannot transact and the TX confirm time will go up.

That is the real sabotage.

The blocksize will go up anyway, the question is, will you let it go up naturally, or you plan to make bitcoin a communist centrally planned currency. I hope not.

Having a bunch of "free space" that's unused due the cap being too big brings a lot of problems and possible exploits. What centralizes Bitcoin is not being able to run a node in your computer, not the nonsense you are talking about. Bitcoin will never scale to worldwide levels by raising blocksize.

[Yanidas]

I just wish the developers can increase the block size to 2MB or 4MB for now. Further increase can be discussed later.

[RealBitcoin]

Having a bunch of "free space" that's unused due the cap being too big brings a lot of problems and possible exploits. What centralizes Bitcoin is not being able to run a node in your computer, not the nonsense you are talking about. Bitcoin will never scale to worldwide levels by raising blocksize.

There is no free space. Damnit you guys really have no clue about the blocksize debate and comment on it.

The cap limit is not a default setting.


Blocks wont become 8mb size, and 7.5 mb will become empty.

Blocks will remain the same 0.5mb, but it just lets the maxium reach 8mb if it needs to.


Now i dont think 8mb should be increased immediately, but it should be written into the protocol to increase at some point.

I dont like the command & control aspect of the development. There should not be a need for development anymore. Add a final BIP into it, and then its over.

Developing it further just gives more power to the developers and it creates a centrally planned currency, that is nothing better than fiat.

[johnyj]

Bitcoin might get a higher fee, but it will never lose its most significant appeal in the long run: Long term saving and international remittance

Let's be honest: Bitcoin will never be able to compete with those fast&cheap mobile/3rd party payment solutions that charges 0 transaction fee and instant confirmation (you even get some bonus when using them), and the possibility of refund

For example, Sweden has already over 50% of population use mobile payment. So all of these users will feel angry when they need to pay a fee  to use bitcoin to spend, besides all the hassles about exchange into and out of bitcoin

So, even if you make bitcoin 0 transaction fee + instant confirmation + refund, people would still not use bitcoin to spend, because they gain nothing from switching from existing mobile payment solutions to bitcoin. People who care about bitcoin mostly attracted by its deflative nature for value storage, and they usually buy large amount of coins, so the fee is the least concern for them (I have seen these people paying 5-10% above market price to get 1-2 bitcoin, do you think they really care about the current level of fee?)

If you consider its major advantage against existing financial system, it is clear that the best marketing for bitcoin is either its exchange rate rises (for long term saving), or more and more exchanges are available in each country (for international remittance)

Yea but thats not really why users use bitcoin now.

I get that bitcoin has like 10 features that are appealing but most people use bitcoin only for 2 things:  get money online, send money online.

You can already earn fiat money on various sites, and if banks really make TX instant, it will be a big blowback to bitcoin.

I think it will be a big blowback, most people dont care about financial privacy, and control over money anyway

Do you have any data backing your claim?

You can look at my signature, there were two polls I did years ago towards the users of this forum, you can see clearly majority of the people hold their coins for a long time and they spend a little later on

And I have been working as a bitcoin broker for years, I clearly notice that over 90% of my customers never do more than 1 transaction per week, and a large part of them do one purchase per month, after the salary day. It is also possible those transactions are for international remittance, e.g. people sending money to their family once a month

The people who are interested in high frequency trading are those trading on exchanges, but that does not require the bitcoin traffic. Gamblers are also heavy users since they frequently sending small amount of bitcoin for gambling, but I think it is easy to communicate with those sites and let them change their deposit policy

Exchanges, wallet providers and gambling sites indeed have the requirement to do lots of bitcoin transaction, but since they are a few, they can easily establish their own clearing channel to dramatically reduce the traffic on bitcoin network. That's why Lightning Network seems to be a future direction, but anyway its implementation is very complex thus does not show the benefit over traditional clearing channel. It would require years of review and test before commercial use. And maybe by that time off-chain clearing is already the norm so there is no need for on-chain clearing

[p2pbucks]

We are reaching the blocksize limit fast and delays in confirming transactions with standards fees is becoming noticeable. A consensus needs to be found quickly otherwise Bitcoin is going to choke in unconfirmed transactions soon.

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7&timespan=all&scale=1&address=

Simply : NO !  If the block is full , just increasing the mining fees .

[tolikkk]

have an exaggerated opinion that you can substitute bitcoin to altcoins that don't have this problem or already solved this problem, eventually bitcoin as a platform for consensus-building and testing scenarios of justified and I think , though, that bitcoin has run its course and at this stage it is necessary to concentrate on the more advanced features in this area, but also active implementation at all levels

[johnyj]

have an exaggerated opinion that you can substitute bitcoin to altcoins that don't have this problem or already solved this problem, eventually bitcoin as a platform for consensus-building and testing scenarios of justified and I think , though, that bitcoin has run its course and at this stage it is necessary to concentrate on the more advanced features in this area, but also active implementation at all levels

After those who complain about the high fee left, the bitcoin network will be as good as before, so eventually all the poor people leave for alt-coins and rich people stay at bitcoin, which coin will be more valuable? 

[Cconvert2G36]

have an exaggerated opinion that you can substitute bitcoin to altcoins that don't have this problem or already solved this problem, eventually bitcoin as a platform for consensus-building and testing scenarios of justified and I think , though, that bitcoin has run its course and at this stage it is necessary to concentrate on the more advanced features in this area, but also active implementation at all levels

After those who complain about the high fee left, the bitcoin network will be as good as before, so eventually all the poor people leave for alt-coins and rich people stay at bitcoin, which coin will be more valuable? 

The one with more utility.

[Hannu]

We are reaching the blocksize limit fast and delays in confirming transactions with standards fees is becoming noticeable. A consensus needs to be found quickly otherwise Bitcoin is going to choke in unconfirmed transactions soon.

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7&timespan=all&scale=1&address=

How raspnode? How we fit into the block chain USB flash drive ? 

[BitUsher]

Looks like the core-devs are hell bent in increasing the blocksize so are pushing through a "backdoor" alternative method of avoiding staying at 1MB maxBlockSize stall if a hardfork fails to increase the blocksize --

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2016-January/012188.html

If 100% consensus is never achieved, then the options are:
1. Never upgrade and keep the blocksize limit unchanged forever.
2. Use a firm softfork to resolve the deadlock.
3. Hardfork anyway and split the network.

My argument is simply that 2 is better than 3 and possibly 1.

 https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2016-January/012191.html

Looks like the new proposal will be create a soft hardfork or softserve hardfork with the express intentions of preventing a deadlock and increasing the blocksize.

The core devs are all big blockers and will stop at nothing to increase capacity!

P.S... In all seriousness , I owe an apology to luke-jr who I assumed from everyone's claims wanted the blocklimit to remain at 1MB or decrease . Apparently, you make an ass out of yourself by assuming and spreading gossip.

[achow101]

Looks like the core-devs are hell bent in increasing the blocksize so are pushing through a "backdoor" alternative method of avoiding staying at 1MB maxBlockSize stall if a hardfork fails to increase the blocksize --

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2016-January/012188.html

If 100% consensus is never achieved, then the options are:
1. Never upgrade and keep the blocksize limit unchanged forever.
2. Use a firm softfork to resolve the deadlock.
3. Hardfork anyway and split the network.

My argument is simply that 2 is better than 3 and possibly 1.

 https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2016-January/012191.html

Looks like the new proposal will be create a soft hardfork or softserve hardfork with the express intentions of preventing a deadlock and increasing the blocksize.

The core devs are all big blockers and will stop at nothing to increase capacity!

P.S... In all seriousness , I owe an apology to luke-jr who I assumed from everyone's claims wanted the blocklimit to remain at 1MB or decrease . Apparently, you make an ass out of yourself by assuming and spreading gossip.

That guy in the email isn't a core dev. He is just proposing something, which in all likelihood is probably going to be rejected.

[BitUsher]

That guy in the email isn't a core dev. He is just proposing something, which in all likelihood is probably going to be rejected.

Did you read the 2nd link and other discussions from last year ?

FWIW, this is something I've been planning to proposed (in a nicer form) for a
while, tentatively called a "soft hardfork" (or less-seriously a "softserve
hardfork"). The big piece missing that I've been holding off on publishing it
as a BIP until complete, is a planned-out defensive reaction for a community
which wishes to reject the hardfork. I guess I should probably prioritise this
a bit more now...

Not only are multiple core devs interested , but Luke-Jr out of all people is prioritizing this to insure that a hardfork to increase blocksize is pushed through in a crisis.

I suppose this information doesn't follow the standard political narrative but facts are facts.

Being discussed as a nuclear or last resort option , but the code is going to be prioritized to have as a ready tool which may come in handy with a deadlock.

[iCEBREAKER]

We are reaching the blocksize limit fast and delays in confirming transactions with standards fees is becoming noticeable. A consensus needs to be found quickly otherwise Bitcoin is going to choke in unconfirmed transactions soon.

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7&timespan=all&scale=1&address=

2015 called.  It wants you to give back its clever strategy to sell XT using fear/panic about Bitcoin's impending D000M.

If you "Bitcoin is going to choke S000N" types were serious, XT would change to a different/modified PoW at the same time it attempts (via contentious hard fork) to impose blocks >1MB on the (demonstrably unwilling) rest of the system.

Why not just do an extra round of SHA256?  Existing ASICs could do that with firmware/driver tweak.

The reason you don't do that is you want to hijack Bitcoin and destroy its interesting property of being diverse/diffuse/defensible/resilient.

The sooner you fork off and stop trying to attach GavinCoin to Satoshi's coattails, the better.

[Cryptology]

We are reaching the blocksize limit fast and delays in confirming transactions with standards fees is becoming noticeable. A consensus needs to be found quickly otherwise Bitcoin is going to choke in unconfirmed transactions soon.

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7&timespan=all&scale=1&address=

2015 called.  It wants you to give back it's clever strategy to sell XT using fear/panic about Bitcoin's impending D000M.

If you "Bitcoin is going to choke S000N" types were serious, XT would change to a different/modified PoW at the same time it attempts (via contentious hard fork) to impose blocks >1MB on the (demonstrably unwilling) rest of the system.

Why not just do an extra round of SHA256?  Existing ASICs could do that with firmware/driver tweak.

The reason you don't do that is you want to hijack Bitcoin and destroy its interesting property of being diverse/diffuse/defensible/resilient.

The sooner you fork off and stop trying to attach GavinCoin to Satoshi's coattails, the better.

Are you out of your mind? So you think that pointing out the FACT that blocks are fuller and consequently the backlog of unconfirmed transactions will grow and that the only available solution right now is to change that bloody parameter equals a "clever strategy to sell XT using fear/panic about Bitcoin's impending D000M."? Dude I'm not selling anything. Not even the ideology of a European far right party like you do.  As a matter of fact I cannot care less about which side gets to win this battle as long as Bitcoin continues to live and grow. I'm just a bitcoin enthusiast and investor concerned about egomaniacs and fanatics like you bringing down the most exciting libertarian financial innovation the world has seen in modern times. When I come across characters like you I realize that the possibility of Bitcoin splitting into 2 or more stable blockchains is more probable than I would like it to be.

[iCEBREAKER]

Are you out of your mind? So you think that pointing out the FACT that blocks are fuller and consequently the backlog of unconfirmed transactions will grow and that the only available solution right now is to change that bloody parameter equals a "clever strategy to sell XT using fear/panic about Bitcoin's impending D000M."? Dude I'm not selling anything. Not even the ideology of a European far right party like you do.  As a matter of fact I cannot care less about which side gets to win this battle as long as Bitcoin continues to live and grow. I'm just a bitcoin enthusiast and investor concerned about egomaniacs and fanatics like you bringing down the most exciting libertarian financial innovation the world has seen in modern times. When I come across characters like you I realize that the possibility of Bitcoin splitting into 2 or more stable blockchains is more probable than I would like it to be.

Your lack of faith in Bitcoin's antifragility (as evidenced by your concern about it being brought down by "egomaniacs and fanatics") is duly noted.

You are yet another n000b who thinks BTC will face certain d000m (and s000n) if we don't act in haste to change a key control variable in the middle of Satoshi's experiment.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

Having a bunch of "free space" that's unused due the cap being too big brings a lot of problems and possible exploits. What centralizes Bitcoin is not being able to run a node in your computer, not the nonsense you are talking about. Bitcoin will never scale to worldwide levels by raising blocksize.

There is no free space. Damnit you guys really have no clue about the blocksize debate and comment on it.

The cap limit is not a default setting.


Blocks wont become 8mb size, and 7.5 mb will become empty.

Blocks will remain the same 0.5mb, but it just lets the maxium reach 8mb if it needs to.


Now i dont think 8mb should be increased immediately, but it should be written into the protocol to increase at some point.

I dont like the command & control aspect of the development. There should not be a need for development anymore. Add a final BIP into it, and then its over.

Developing it further just gives more power to the developers and it creates a centrally planned currency, that is nothing better than fiat.

I know there's no "default setting" and free space is just a way so say it, but yes having that "extra space" brings some problems.

In any case 8mb or 20 solves nothing in the long term. Right now those values are absurd, in the future, we'll see how the average internet connection/hardware deals with those, but the main point is, Bitcoin will never scale to worldwide levels without something like the Lightning Network.
At some point software solidifies, protocols need to stop being exposed to hard forks, and 1mb seem to be enough (+ sigwit) until we get LN. Only people clueless in scaling software of this nature would claim that doing hard forks periodically is a good idea. TCP/IP solidified and then we developed layers on top, the same will happen with Bitcoin. I don't care if it happens with 1mb or 2 or 8, in the long run we will encounter the same problem and only LN can save our asses if we want to go global, something big block guys don't seem to get (unless they are ok with the nightmare of huge datacenters running nodes + the aforementioned problem of periodic hard forks).

[cr1776]

Having a bunch of "free space" that's unused due the cap being too big brings a lot of problems and possible exploits. What centralizes Bitcoin is not being able to run a node in your computer, not the nonsense you are talking about. Bitcoin will never scale to worldwide levels by raising blocksize.

There is no free space. Damnit you guys really have no clue about the blocksize debate and comment on it.

The cap limit is not a default setting.


Blocks wont become 8mb size, and 7.5 mb will become empty.

Blocks will remain the same 0.5mb, but it just lets the maxium reach 8mb if it needs to.


Now i dont think 8mb should be increased immediately, but it should be written into the protocol to increase at some point.

I dont like the command & control aspect of the development. There should not be a need for development anymore. Add a final BIP into it, and then its over.

Developing it further just gives more power to the developers and it creates a centrally planned currency, that is nothing better than fiat.

I know there's no "default setting" and free space is just a way so say it, but yes having that "extra space" brings some problems.

In any case 8mb or 20 solves nothing in the long term. Right now those values are absurd, in the future, we'll see how the average internet connection/hardware deals with those, but the main point is, Bitcoin will never scale to worldwide levels without something like the Lightning Network.
At some point software solidifies, protocols need to stop being exposed to hard forks, and 1mb seem to be enough (+ sigwit) until we get LN. Only people clueless in scaling software of this nature would claim that doing hard forks periodically is a good idea. TCP/IP solidified and then we developed layers on top, the same will happen with Bitcoin. I don't care if it happens with 1mb or 2 or 8, in the long run we will encounter the same problem and only LN can save our asses if we want to go global, something big block guys don't seem to get (unless they are ok with the nightmare of huge datacenters running nodes + the aforementioned problem of periodic hard forks).

I agree.  At some point, bitcoin will be too entrenched to do hard forks unless absolutely necessary - e.g. some huge break in ECDSA, perhaps proving P=NP would make things absolutely necessary.

LN, sidechains, segwit and similar proposals are ways to alleviate the pressure on block sizes and accomplish a lot of experiments without having to change the core protocol regularly.  As above, I'd think about it like TCP/IP vs SMTP/DNS/FTP/IMAP/NNTP/SSH/DHCP/HTTP and the like.  Much will be built with bitcoin's blockchain and on top of it due to the security that the value of the bitcoin ecosystem provides.