Anyone else used to be a big blocker but changed his mind?

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

I remember when I was still learning the basics, when I saw the graphic that Gavin released about his BIP101 proposal and how "nicely" it scaled to Visa levels in a ton of years, I was saying "well, this looks great, why aren't we doing this yet"?

Then I started learning the details and saw how all that glitters is not gold. How things aren't black and white and there are huge tradeoffs. When I realized the top priority of Bitcoin must be decentralized nodes, I saw why a lot of people was opposed to having huge blocks. In the long term, small blocks that enable for average people to run their nodes all over the planet may be the thing that saves Bitcoin from governmental oppression. Just think about it, what scenario an attacker would prefer, a couple of datacenters per country, or a ton of random nodes spreaded all over the globe + secured through Tor? Exactly... seems clear to me. So think twice before you want bigger blocks just to pay a little bit less of fees, because the tradeoff is insane. Unless anyone has a better alternative, "conservative block size (not necessarly 1MB but conservative)" + LN remains the best way to scale our friend.
If LN fails (it will not cause Gmaxwell and the rest are working hard and doing a great job) we would always have the original Bitcoin with decentralized nodes, but if nodes were huge, we wouldn't have anything to fall back at that has remained decentralized.

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[franky1]

if 30 million people can watch netflix video streams.. then having a 2mb-8mb blocks is not a problem

what i think is best is a 2mb jump for now.. and then doubling every couple years
also having lightning network on the side if people want to do zero confirm instant transactions

[keepdoing]

I remember when I was still learning the basics, when I saw the graphic that Gavin released about his BIP101 proposal and how "nicely" it scaled to Visa levels in a ton of years, I was saying "well, this looks great, why aren't we doing this yet"?

Then I started learning the details and saw how all that glitters is not gold. How things aren't black and white and there are huge tradeoffs. When I realized the top priority of Bitcoin must be decentralized nodes, I saw why a lot of people was opposed to having huge blocks. In the long term, small blocks that enable for average people to run their nodes all over the planet may be the thing that saves Bitcoin from governmental oppression. Just think about it, what scenario an attacker would prefer, a couple of datacenters per country, or a ton of random nodes spreaded all over the globe + secured through Tor? Exactly... seems clear to me. So think twice before you want bigger blocks just to pay a little bit less of fees, because the tradeoff is insane. Unless anyone has a better alternative, "conservative block size (not necessarly 1MB but conservative)" + LN remains the best way to scale our friend.
If LN fails (it will not cause Gmaxwell and the rest are working hard and doing a great job) we would always have the original Bitcoin with decentralized nodes, but if nodes were huge, we wouldn't have anything to fall back at that has remained decentralized.

I don't know of anyone who is not rooting for LN to succeed.  Nor do I see overwhelming concensus for XT. 

What I do see in your case is an obvious shill for LN exclusively.  It is the dishonest BS coming out of Blockstream Players / Core-Dev recently.  I like the way you seemingly acknowledge support for "conservative block size (not necessarly 1MB but conservative)" but those are empty, hollow, lying words.  Bigger blocks are always just around the corner - but in reality, even a doubling to 2mb is in REALITY met with zero support from you lot.  Its just political empty talk designed to stall and "appear" reasonable.

Then there is the lying, misrepresented BS where you say "you want bigger blocks just to pay a little bit less of fees".  Which is utter nonsense.  A twisted interpretation.

Let me tell you what MOST PEOPLE (I am betting a 50+% Concensus) would agree to in about the time it takes to read this post.....

2mb block increase w/Slow, Measured increases build in - possibly capping at 8 or 16 or 32 (Can be increased later if needed but fixes current situation and establishes a roadmap people can begin to have faith in, make plans for, acquire funding for, and eliminates the uncertainty which is paralyzing the entire ecosystem at present).  Also establishes another temporary cap - and forces growth to be intelligent and not so sprawling.  Keeps a focus and biased toward side chain development (which is, and should be, considered as part of the overall endgame solution) .  Also allows for a guaranteed maximum growth curve that people can trust in, plan for, including the miners. Allows for increases in bandwidth/storage to keep up with growth, and it allows for solutions (example SegWit) to also be implemented to take pressure off the bitcoin network.

You want to argue specifics... argue why this path would be bad?  SPECIFICALLY.

[Lauda]

LN needs a bigger block size in order to be able to operate at Visa levels.

I remember when I was still learning the basics, when I saw the graphic that Gavin released about his BIP101 proposal and how "nicely" it scaled to Visa levels in a ton of years, I was saying "well, this looks great, why aren't we doing this yet"?

Visa levels of 2015 in 2025+ (forgot the exact numbers). Doesn't look that great to me.

what i think is best is a 2mb jump for now

I wouldn't mind that.

[Cconvert2G36]

what i think is best is a 2mb jump for now

I wouldn't mind that.

[keepdoing]

what i think is best is a 2mb jump for now

I wouldn't mind that.

Roadmaps can be changed.  Only an idiot keeps to the map when all the signs on the side of the road keep saying "Bridge Out Ahead".   Idiot.

[franky1]

visa transaction levels are based on their multiple independent systems numbers, that are then combined into their umbrella brand..
EG Visa america is a totally different system and network to Visa UK, and both are different networks to visa Europe, and so on.

so Visa's world wide transaction numbers are based on the brand umbrellla.. not the individual network capabilities. so a more fair comparison is that blockchain (crypto) currency can handle 7000 tx/s (bitcoin+ 999altcoins)

remember if you treat bitcoin like visa america, treat litecoin as visa europe. treat feathercoin as visa UK, and so on.. you start to see the real picture and a better comparison to visa's brand..

so i would not worry so much with comparing bitcoin to visa..

[Quantus]

I am a 1MB block supporter who feels 1MB is enough for many years to come. We have a network run on Raspberry Pi's and old laptops from the 90s, We need a stronger network and a stronger world wide web and a stronger Tor network; we need better mempool protocols to allow for rebroadcasting transactions with higher transaction fees and many other features like client side minimum fee requirement prediction but what we do not need is a larger block size. Bitcoin was never meant to be a free system, higher transaction fees are the only way to secure the network from government manipulation and control.

[VirosaGITS]

I am a 1MB block supporter who feels 1MB is enough for many years to come. We have a network run on Raspberry Pi's and old laptops from the 90s, We need a stronger network and a stronger world wide web and a stronger Tor network; we need better mempool protocols to allow for rebroadcasting transactions with higher transaction fees and many other features but what we do not need is a larger block size. Bitcoin was never meant to be a free system, high transaction fees are the only way to secure the network from government manipulation and control.

Thats simply not the case, the tx rate per second is already close to the limit, not that there is any point into arguing blocksize however. Just pointing out your argument is factually wrong, even though it may or may not be "enough".

Through natural selection a small block size means higher transaction fee, culling out the useless tiny transactions.

[NorrisK]

I am a 1MB block supporter who feels 1MB is enough for many years to come. We have a network run on Raspberry Pi's and old laptops from the 90s, We need a stronger network and a stronger world wide web and a stronger Tor network; we need better mempool protocols to allow for rebroadcasting transactions with higher transaction fees and many other features but what we do not need is a larger block size. Bitcoin was never meant to be a free system, high transaction fees are the only way to secure the network from government manipulation and control.

Don't agree here.. It is better to future proof the system as soon as possible, before hardforking becomes next to impossible..

Why the short term vision? 1MB is enough for now, so lets just wait till it becomes a problem before fixing it..

Why would high transaction fees protect the network from government manipulation? They have the most funds available no matter what, so they would always be able to do that, also at higher fees.

[Quantus]

I am a 1MB block supporter who feels 1MB is enough for many years to come. We have a network run on Raspberry Pi's and old laptops from the 90s, We need a stronger network and a stronger world wide web and a stronger Tor network; we need better mempool protocols to allow for rebroadcasting transactions with higher transaction fees and many other features but what we do not need is a larger block size. Bitcoin was never meant to be a free system, high transaction fees are the only way to secure the network from government manipulation and control.

Thats simply not the case, the tx rate per second is already close to the limit, not that there is any point into arguing blocksize however. Just pointing out your argument is factually wrong, even though it may or may not be "enough".

Through natural selection a small block size means higher transaction fee, culling out the useless tiny transactions.

yes through natural selection  I couldn't agree more.

[Quantus]

I am a 1MB block supporter who feels 1MB is enough for many years to come. We have a network run on Raspberry Pi's and old laptops from the 90s, We need a stronger network and a stronger world wide web and a stronger Tor network; we need better mempool protocols to allow for rebroadcasting transactions with higher transaction fees and many other features but what we do not need is a larger block size. Bitcoin was never meant to be a free system, high transaction fees are the only way to secure the network from government manipulation and control.

Don't agree here.. It is better to future proof the system as soon as possible, before hardforking becomes next to impossible..

Why the short term vision? 1MB is enough for now, so lets just wait till it becomes a problem before fixing it..

Why would high transaction fees protect the network from government manipulation? They have the most funds available no matter what, so they would always be able to do that, also at higher fees.

Hardforking now is impossible, consensus is everything and it will not be won by force, A hard fork now would mean fracturing the network into two distinct camps the 1MB faction and the others, it would be war.
There can only be one Bitcoin and one Bitcoin network and the new fork would be nothing more then an alt coin bootstrapping itself with the Bitcoin Blockchain. When in doubt people will side with the 1MB faction and people know it, this is the only thing preventing a hardfork now.

Your next question is a bit harder to answer, Higher transaction fees mean more incentive for mining pools to process transactions and reinvest profits in the cutting edge hardware needed to stay ahead of the mining difficulty wave.  The total cost of all transaction fees = the amount of money spent on mining hardware, as that price falls so dose the price needed to manipulate the network. If miners are not constantly reinvesting profits to buy new hardware then governments will gain control simply by waiting for our mining hardware to become antiquated.  We should only raise the block size after transaction fees grow to a point where they become prohibitive to the growth of the network that inflection point will be around 1 to 5 USD per transaction. Again Bitcoin was never meant to be free. Freedom is not free and nether is Bitcoin.  

[centralbanksequalsbombs]

So refreshing to see this robust discussion even in 2016.

Yes smart people around the world are noticing how resilient (and unstoppable) bitcoin is. Big blockers couldn't stop bitcoin. Bitcoin is growing immensely despite even all big banks in every country starting a war 4-years ago on bitcoin in 2013 - all supervisors and tellers have been told to reject transactions relating to bitcoin if they are told about it but all of us people in the world keep quiet and buy/sell transactions but never say "bitcoin". Bitcoin pwned outdated Banks.

Amazing to see global trade growth on localbitcoins as well (scroll down to see all the individual countries:
https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins

Another strong solution that will make bitcoin's decentralization stronger is cross-chain atomic swaps! Decentralized trade without fiat.