Mempool is now up to 25.5 MB with 22,200 transactions waiting.

[Lauda]

Once again you can thank all the people who are behind Classic and BU for this event.

How is it their fault that tx volume is rising, exactly?

You're grasping at straws here.

This isn't a natural TX volume rise. It is their fault because it is highly likely that one of their supporters is behind it; they're trying to sell the story of false urgency. If you had looked at the charts and analyzed them then you would know that something is wrong. A person above me quoted my post again. Three is no valid reason for 50+k transactions, that include a fee 6 times lower than the recommended one, to appear out of nowhere. Additionally there's also that movement spotted by Alex Petrov.

[sturle]

Well, it's time to increase block size or ask every merchants or services to accept zero confirmation (as long as it has good fees), so there won't be any problem

Increasing the block size won't do anything but make the problem worse.

A truly hilariously false statement. 2 MB would solve the problem immediately, effectively doubling the capacity of the network.

Ehm..  Did you see how quickly that backlog increased?  Many nodes without mempool limit, i.e. before 0.12, even went down.  No realistic block size could have handled it.  The only reason why it flattened, is the fact that the spammer ran out of unspent txos to spend.  Recycling them faster through larger blocks will only make the problem worse by making the cost of running a full node in your home even higher.  (Contrary to popular belief, more nodes at a big datacenter doesn't help the network at all, due to the way Bitcoin tries to spread connections between as many netblocks as possible for sybil resistance.)

Merchants and users are abandoning bitcoin out of frustration as we speak.

Only Lightning can solve that problem, by making instantly confirmed transactions possible.

[VeritasSapere]

This is part of the division in the blocksize debate. I think that we should scale Bitcoin directly as was always intended. Others think that most should use off chain solutions instead, and that by restricting the blocksize they can make that happen. I strongly disagree, I do not consider off chain solutions as a way to scale Bitcoin at all. I am not against off chain solutions but people should be free to use them as an alternative to using the Bitcoin blockchain directly, not because it is the only viable way to transact on the Bitcoin network because transacting directly has been made to expensive and unreliable because of this arbitrary restriction. Core supporters call this a "fee market", I consider this as a form of centralized economic planning and fundamentally flawed. I favor a free market for blockspace instead, which means that the blocksize limit should be above the average transaction volume, and miners can make their own decisions in terms of what transactions to include and not to include based on their own unique situation and parameters of profitability, which the miners do know best for themselves, which is why free markets do work better then planned economies.

It also seems ridiculous to restrict the blocksize now when these good off chain solutions have not even been build yet, just increase the blocksize now to two megabytes and if people choose to use off chain solutions then we will not need to increase it that much again, just give people the choice of what path Bitcoin takes. Restricting the blocksize now is wiping out the original vision of Bitcoin when both opposing visions can still co exists under a two megabyte blocksize limit.

[chopstick]

This is part of the division in the blocksize debate. I think that we should scale Bitcoin directly as was always intended. Others think that most should use off chain solutions instead, and that by restricting the blocksize they can make that happen. I strongly disagree, I do not consider off chain solutions as a way to scale Bitcoin at all. I am not against off chain solutions but people should be free to use them as an alternative to using the Bitcoin blockchain directly, not because it is the only viable way to transact on the Bitcoin network because transacting directly has been made to expensive and unreliable because of this arbitrary restriction. Core supporters call this a "fee market", I consider this as a form of centralized economic planning and fundamentally flawed. I favor a free market for blockspace instead, which means that the blocksize limit should be above the average transaction volume, and miners can make their own decisions in terms of what transactions to include and not to include based on their own unique situation and parameters of profitability, which the miners do know best for themselves, which is why free markets work better then planned economies.

It also seems ridiculous to restrict the blocksize now when we do not even have good off chain solutions already build, just increase the blocksize now to two megabytes and if people choose to use off chain solutions then we will not need to increase it that much again, just give people the choice of what path Bitcoin takes. Restricting the blocksize now is wiping out the original vision of Bitcoin when both opposing visions can still co exists under a two megabyte blocksize limit.

Thank you. I was going to try to type something similar but my mind is just too frazzled at the moment to handle it.

Off-chain solutions aren't better than immediately providing a scaling solution for the real blockchain, but they do have long-term utility value for some people.

But forcing these solutions on to everyone through the artificial limitation of the blocksize is just downright dirty.

[bargainbin]

...
Only Lightning can solve that problem, by making instantly confirmed transactions possible.

Lightning solves a very specific problem, which isn't even a problem right now: Allows creation of a [prepaid] micropayment channel between trading partners. In other words, if you buy coffee at Joe's every morning, you can lock away $100, and buy coffee at Joe's 'til your $100 is spent.
Like buying a Joe's gift card.
Revolutionary, in a Rube Goldberg sort'a way

[Meuh6879]

1) That said, the real problem is that your turning down customers not because you can't handle them but just just because you decided that your product deserve higher prices.

2) You decided to do it without advertising the price increase in advance.

3) You decide to do it even if your competitors have better products to offer both in absolute terms and even in relative terms once you discounted your recent price rise.

1) Free network is like this ... when you have high bandwidth and popular files ... it's retrieve faster.
In monetary network ... if you pay FEES, you have more priority.

Fair Game.




2) WRONG : Bitcoin Core indicate EXACTLY the amount of fees needed to have HIGH priority and stay and pass the mempool without any additionnal time.

It's the others software (webapp) that they can't deal with it.
So ... that's why i use REAL BITCOIN CLIENT to emit and receive bitcoin.
I have the REALTIME fees to pay to emit.





3) In the world, you don't have a network that it can emit MONEY ... feely and anonymously (without KYC and 3 days of evaluation).

Deal with it.

You can not pay your food with gold ... same result actually.

[sturle]

But forcing these solutions on to everyone through the artificial limitation of the blocksize is just downright dirty.

And attempting a hostile takeover of Bitcoin through a hard fork is the work of angels?

The better solution is freedom.  Make it possible to choose between different mechanisms.  Lightning, if you want instant secure confirmations. Use a sidechain if you want larger blocks with the possibility of other features like shorter times between blocks.  I'm sure you can get all of the big block supporters to agree on a sidechain to use.  Diversity is not a problem, because you are free to move bitcoin between different sidechains and the main chain.  Use the blockchain directly if you want to use the most limited resource, but expect to pay to use everyone's diskspace.  Just don't try to force your "solution" upon everyone, a "solution" which every schoolkid in the world can see won't solve any real world problems.

For some companies, like Coinbase which confiscate user funds on the basis of blockchain analysis, the increased privacy of transactions on the side is bad.  In my opinion the improved privacy is required in today's hostile environment of Big Brothers watching everywhere.  It is more in the spirit of Bitcoin.

[VeritasSapere]

The only way for Bitcoin to maintain the principles of freedom is to decentralize development. It is only through the choice of multiple implementations that users have the freedom of choice. All open source projects are essentially dictatorships, the only way to democratize development is through this choice of multiple implementations. The ability to hard fork represents the very check on power against any development team. Hard forks should be embraced as an essential governance mechanism of Bitcoin that helps to keep Bitcoin free and decentralized, it represents the very freedom of choice inherent in Bitcoin.

Soft forks quash the minority voice. Hard forks allow it to persist.

[VeritasSapere]

Saying that sidechains and lighting network are the solutions to the problems we are having now is just ridiculous, let me remind you that these systems have not even been developed yet, they can not possibly be the solution to the problems we are having now. The blocksize can be increased now on the other hand and double the capacity of the network.

Maybe you could ask Block Stream if you could use liquid, which is their closed sourced centralized sidechain, for a monthly fee to their for profit company of course.

[Sir Lagsalot]

OK, so a combined spam and shill attack. Doesn't seem to be very effective judging by price. Back to the drawing board for Red Team.

[ATguy]

The better solution is freedom.  Make it possible to choose between different mechanisms.  Lightning, if you want instant secure confirmations. Use a sidechain if you want larger blocks with the possibility of other features like shorter times between blocks.  I'm sure you can get all of the big block supporters to agree on a sidechain to use.  Diversity is not a problem, because you are free to move bitcoin between different sidechains and the main chain.  Use the blockchain directly if you want to use the most limited resource, but expect to pay to use everyone's diskspace. Just don't try to force your "solution" upon everyone, a "solution" which every schoolkid in the world can see won't solve any real world problems.

Why you force your solution to everyone else then? By the way diskspace is not a problem, not everyone need full copy of blockchain on harddisk to make Bitcoin work as decentralized. It is necessary today because with prunning you cant choose to keep very old blocks, but not extra hard feature to add to the prunning option.

Sidechains will not enjoy hash security of Bitcoin, so we should scale onchain as much as average computers can handle, far from today 1 MB which even 15 year old obsolute computer still can sync and run well. We should set minimum hardware requiremens and scale onchain respondingly. Full node can not be expected to wok for every obsolute computer, just for average computers or better...

[sturle]

The only way for Bitcoin to maintain the principles of freedom is to decentralize development. It is only through the choice of multiple implementations that users have the freedom of choice.

There are hundreds of implementations.  See the altcoins part of the forum.  There are two separate implementations of the Bitcoin consensus model as well.  Bitcoin Core and libbitcoin.  Those are kept in sync by independent developers.

All open source projects are essentially dictatorships, the only way to democratize development is through this choice of multiple implementations. The ability to hard fork represents the very check on power against any development team. Hard forks should be embraced as an essential governance mechanism of Bitcoin that helps to keep Bitcoin free and decentralized, it represents the freedom of choice.

Go ahead and embrace all the altcoins you want.  Just don't pretend it is Bitcoin.  Bitcoin is built on consensus, which is incompatible with dictatorship.  Attempts to change the hard rules of bitcoin will result in an altcoin.

Soft forks quash the minority voice. Hard forks allow it to persist.

How high was he when he wrote this?  Every soft fork has been deployed with a 95% hashrate support so far, and no real opposition (except for P2SH, which was opposed by one developer).  And he is attempting a hostile takeover at less than 75%?  He should try rehab instead.

[Lauda]

The blocksize can be increased now on the other hand and double the capacity of the network.

Which solves nothing, stop bickering about it. If this attacker was persistent he could easily cause the same backlog with the 2 MB block size limit in place.

OK, so a combined spam and shill attack.

Aren't the shills quite obvious?

But forcing these solutions on to everyone through the artificial limitation of the blocksize is just downright dirty.

And attempting a hostile takeover of Bitcoin through a hard fork is the work of angels?

They're just wasting everyone's time with their nonsense and the political games.

[bargainbin]

...
Bitcoin is built on consensus, which is incompatible with dictatorship. ...

'Long as the the dictator gets to define [dictate the meaning of] consensus, I see no problems.
Explain?

[pedrog]

There's no such thing as "spam transactions"

So per your definition the "stress tests" in the past were not 'spam' but rather legit transactions?  

Sure, tests are really important, legit as it gets!

[sturle]

Saying that sidechains and lighting network are the solutions to the problems we are having now is just ridiculous, let me remind you that these systems have not even been developed yet, they can not possibly be the solution to the problems we are having now.

The systems have been developed, but depend on a soft fork which hasn't been deployed yet.  It will be released next month, and deployed as fast as safely possible.

The blocksize can be increased now on the other hand and double the capacity of the network.

First of all it has already been trivially shown in this thread that a blocksize increase won't solve the problem at hand.  If you think every bitcoin user in the world can just switch to different software yesterday evening, and use bigger blocks by now, you are having fantasies.  Fortunately noone suggest anything like that either.  Deploying larger blocks will take much longer, since every single node in the world has to upgrade.  Unless you plan to deploy an altcoin, which you are free to do of course.

Maybe you could ask Block Stream if you could use liquid, which is their closed sourced centralized sidechain, for a monthly fee to their for profit company of course.

I have no need to.  I pay normal transaction fees, and am therefore not affected by the current spam attack.

[sturle]

...
Bitcoin is built on consensus, which is incompatible with dictatorship. ...

'Long as the the dictator gets to define [dictate the meaning of] consensus, I see no problems.
Explain?

This is not the place for ELI5s of how bitcoin works.  See Satoshi's whitepaper.

[bargainbin]

...
Bitcoin is built on consensus, which is incompatible with dictatorship. ...

'Long as the the dictator gets to define [dictate the meaning of] consensus, I see no problems.
Explain?

This is not the place for ELI5s of how bitcoin works.  See Satoshi's whitepaper.

No ELI5 was asked for. If you got nothing, just say "I got nothing."
If you wish to reference something specific, clarify plz

[Meuh6879]

Hard forks should be embraced

  so, you don't run a full node ... yah ?
me, i run it.

and i pay the HDD and Bandwidth for this.

that's why i prefer 1 MB + SegWit  ...  (Blockchain = 66 Gb this day).

[ATguy]

The blocksize can be increased now on the other hand and double the capacity of the network.

First of all it has already been trivially shown in this thread that a blocksize increase won't solve the problem at hand.  If you think every bitcoin user in the world can just switch to different software yesterday evening, and use bigger blocks by now, you are having fantasies.  Fortunately noone suggest anything like that either.  Deploying larger blocks will take much longer, since every single node in the world has to upgrade.  Unless you plan to deploy an altcoin, which you are free to do of course.

We could have sufficient bigger blocks today if people planned ahead. About one year ago Gavin predicted we run to the problems with capacity in first half of 2016, which could be faced one year ago, long time for every full node to upgrade. But you must plan ahead, not just react when something become broken. BIP 109  28 days grace period makes sence as a urgency fix of the issue, in this light BIP 109 become well planned again because Gavin predicted the capacity problems. Pitty Gavin is not Bitcoin lead developer anymore, he proving once again he know what Bitcoin needs to stay as #1 cryptocurrency. Oh well