How much decentralization is "enough?"

[futureofbitcoin]

A lot of arguments I'm reading against the block size increase is that it will make running a full node too expensive for a lot of people, reducing the number of full nodes and making bitcoin more centralized.

So how much decentralization is "enough"? Why not reduce the blocksize to half, for more decentralization, if it was so important?

Did we really somehow reach the optimal amount of decentralization with 1 MB blocks, just like that?



I'm genuinely curious to what people think, I don't really have a stance on this either way.

[Amph]

as long as the power is not in the hands of an entity it is decentralized enough, so no having 3 big farms mining bitcoin is not centralized

having those farms in the same place is not centralized, having higher block is still not centralization, but something like a government control all the farms, that's would be what i call centralization...

[n2004al]

A lot of arguments I'm reading against the block size increase is that it will make running a full node too expensive for a lot of people, reducing the number of full nodes and making bitcoin more centralized.

So how much decentralization is "enough"? Why not reduce the blocksize to half, for more decentralization, if it was so important?

Did we really somehow reach the optimal amount of decentralization with 1 MB blocks, just like that?

I'm genuinely curious to what people think, I don't really have a stance on this either way.

Bitcoin is born, is and will be always decentralized. Cannot be never someone or whatever can be which will be able to centralize it. Because is the production itself who leave space for everyone to enter in this "business" without asking the permit to no one. So even for the moment may seems that the possible reduce of the number of nodes can bring the centralization of bitcoin (or can push in this direction) the "game" will always be open for other "players" to "play" the "game" who can begin to "play" in every moment. It will be so always. Forever. This make impossible the centralization of bitcoin. Even if one day all the countries of the world will accept bitcoin as a currency and will create an Authority with the aim to care about it, even this Authority will find difficult to control it. They must buy big quantities in order to be able to control it and this action may bring its price in unimaginable amounts. This can cause the impossibility for this Authority to fulfill its aim. But this is only a theoretical hypothesis. In any kind of situation cannot be verified that all the countries agree in something all together. Few more in the case of bitcoin.

[unamis76]

Decentralization is never "enough" in a world where ASIC's develop really quickly and there are a lot of people who already own a huge chunk of hash power that can buy the newest chips on the market.

You'd achieve nothing by reducing the blocksize in half right now. All of the blockchain behind would take up exactly the same hard drive space and you'd further constrict something that's already starting to be too small.

[MedaR]

With constant growth of hasrate we have rising of new farms on different places with newer technology involved, and more hashtretes. This is good because security of network grows and we have open competition in mining. We need more exchanges that are secure and legal like https://gemini.com/..
Decentralization, better distribution, security, and competition!

[Kprawn]

Well, as it is the decentralized nature of Bitcoin is declining with every big mining farm, putting the smaller ones out of business. Bitcoin will always have

decentralized nodes, because bigger businesses and merchants will pitch in to keep the boat floating, when things get tough. At this stage most of

these businesses are running of "Free" networks, provided by the miners. There are big players out there, catching a free ride.    

[neurotypical]

as long as the power is not in the hands of an entity it is decentralized enough, so no having 3 big farms mining bitcoin is not centralized

having those farms in the same place is not centralized, having higher block is still not centralization, but something like a government control all the farms, that's would be what i call centralization...

Don't be delusional, mining is pretty centralized right now. If running nodes ended the same way (with a couple of big cartels running nodes) Bitcoin would be dead as a decentralized currency. It would be like Bitcoin was running on Google and a couple other big companies. Nodes would be like servers instead of nodes. This is why we need a block size that remains small, so people can run nodes on their desktop computers.

[Amph]

as long as the power is not in the hands of an entity it is decentralized enough, so no having 3 big farms mining bitcoin is not centralized

having those farms in the same place is not centralized, having higher block is still not centralization, but something like a government control all the farms, that's would be what i call centralization...

Don't be delusional, mining is pretty centralized right now. If running nodes ended the same way (with a couple of big cartels running nodes) Bitcoin would be dead as a decentralized currency. It would be like Bitcoin was running on Google and a couple other big companies. Nodes would be like servers instead of nodes. This is why we need a block size that remains small, so people can run nodes on their desktop computers.

bitcoin is the best decentralized thing that you can get, there is no real decentralization, theoretical decentralization is just a utopia, it is good as it is already

with small block size, bitcoin will not scale, this will destroy the adoption, because tx would be stuck at a level of few per sec...

[pereira4]

as long as the power is not in the hands of an entity it is decentralized enough, so no having 3 big farms mining bitcoin is not centralized

having those farms in the same place is not centralized, having higher block is still not centralization, but something like a government control all the farms, that's would be what i call centralization...

Don't be delusional, mining is pretty centralized right now. If running nodes ended the same way (with a couple of big cartels running nodes) Bitcoin would be dead as a decentralized currency. It would be like Bitcoin was running on Google and a couple other big companies. Nodes would be like servers instead of nodes. This is why we need a block size that remains small, so people can run nodes on their desktop computers.

bitcoin is the best decentralized thing that you can get, there is no real decentralization, theoretical decentralization is just a utopia, it is good as it is already

with small block size, bitcoin will not scale, this will destroy the adoption, because tx would be stuck at a level of few per sec...

Dude did you ignore the Lightning Network part?
With Lightning Network we will scale to worldwide levels at cheap transaction volume and without a centralization as fatal as centralization of nodes. LN is actually more decentralized than raising block size would ever be.
There is no problem with adoption thanks to LN, even right now there is no problem, fees are a million times cheaper than any other alternative, but people still don't see a point in using Bitcoin to buy coffee cause they already got Paypal, so let's not turn Bitcoin into Paypal because that's shooting in your own foot.

[calkob]

So how much decentralization is "enough"? Why not reduce the blocksize to half, for more decentralization, if it was so important?
 

Reducing the blocksize to half would be the end of bitcoin, to scale up bitcoin larger blocksizes are essential.

[DimensionZ]

If there is a close circle of developers who decide what direction Bitcoin is heading to I think it's more centralized than decentralized.

[arbitrage]

Decentralization is first priority after security!
More pools, more miners ,more wallets, more distribution..
Security! Community must openly discredit scammers,
 and do more to protect every member!

[Erkallys]

There's never enough decentralization. Even if it would be harder to set up one after the increase of the blocksize, I'll do it because I really need it.

[Carlton Banks]

So how much decentralization is "enough"? Why not reduce the blocksize to half, for more decentralization, if it was so important?
 

Reducing the blocksize to half would be the end of bitcoin, to scale up bitcoin larger blocksizes are essential.

No, that's wrong.



It's true that increasing the blocksize by some amount will allow Bitcoin to scale by some amount.

But, blocksize cannot be increased enough to handle scaling up to 7 billion people. The internet could maybe handle that, but hard drives couldn't handle it. Even the BigBlockers like Gavin Andresen concede this point; only SPV (i.e. not trustless/permissionless like real Bitcoin) transactions can be sustained by big blocks alone.


So, big blocks isn't the answer. It's a small part of the solution, but the real way to do it is to make 1MB work harder, FIRST, then increase the blocksize once you run out of ways to make 1MB more space efficient. Hence, Segwit + Lightning

[Amph]

as long as the power is not in the hands of an entity it is decentralized enough, so no having 3 big farms mining bitcoin is not centralized

having those farms in the same place is not centralized, having higher block is still not centralization, but something like a government control all the farms, that's would be what i call centralization...

Don't be delusional, mining is pretty centralized right now. If running nodes ended the same way (with a couple of big cartels running nodes) Bitcoin would be dead as a decentralized currency. It would be like Bitcoin was running on Google and a couple other big companies. Nodes would be like servers instead of nodes. This is why we need a block size that remains small, so people can run nodes on their desktop computers.

bitcoin is the best decentralized thing that you can get, there is no real decentralization, theoretical decentralization is just a utopia, it is good as it is already

with small block size, bitcoin will not scale, this will destroy the adoption, because tx would be stuck at a level of few per sec...

Dude did you ignore the Lightning Network part?
With Lightning Network we will scale to worldwide levels at cheap transaction volume and without a centralization as fatal as centralization of nodes. LN is actually more decentralized than raising block size would ever be.
There is no problem with adoption thanks to LN, even right now there is no problem, fees are a million times cheaper than any other alternative, but people still don't see a point in using Bitcoin to buy coffee cause they already got Paypal, so let's not turn Bitcoin into Paypal because that's shooting in your own foot.

i didn't do much research about LN, but i guess there are indeed some problems in implementing it, otherwise it should be there already,

like these https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3tucne/eli19_what_are_the_issues_with_the_lightning/

[Carlton Banks]

i didn't do much research about LN, but i guess there are indeed soem problem in implementing, it otherwise it should be there already,

like these https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3tucne/eli19_what_are_the_issues_with_the_lightning/

The main issue with Lightning is getting CLTV operational, which it now is. Anything else is pretty much just implementation details, and those have become much firmer recently (veteran Linux kernel engineer Rusty Russell released an implementation design document for Lightning last month)