Satoshi Nakamoto: "Bitcoin can scale larger than the Visa Network"

[David Rabahy]

They are mostly Blockstream members. They are on payroll of bankers from VC's. Before somebody call me a liar. You can check out https://www.blockstream.com/team/ and then compare with https://bitcoin.org/en/development#bitcoin-core-contributors. I will stop coming into a conversation without proof.

From the former;

Adam Back, Ph.D.
Matt Corallo
Johnny Dilley
Alex Fowler
Mark Friedenbach
Ben Gorlick
Francesca Hall
Austin Hill
Gregory Maxwell *195
James Murdock
Jonas Nick
Rusty Russell
Gregory Sanders
Patrick Strateman *37
Erik Svenson
Warren Togami *12
Jorge Timón *112
Jonathan Wilkins
Glenn Willen *1
Pieter Wuille, Ph.D. *966

* found in the latter; (# of commits).

[1714788986]

1714788986

[1714788986]

1714788986

[David Rabahy]

Bitcoin Core contributors (Ordered by number of commits);

Wladimir J. van der Laan (3398)
Gavin Andresen (1100)
Pieter Wuille (966)
Cory Fields (332)
TheBlueMatt (288)
jonasschnelli (246)
Luke-Jr (239)
Gregory Maxwell (195)
MarcoFalke (128)
fanquake (118)
jtimon (112)
Peter Todd (92)
cozz (70)
sdaftuar (69)
morcos (59)
paveljanik (52)
pstratem (37)
muggenhor (34)
Eric Lombrozo (32)
rebroad (28)
domob1812 (25)
Michagogo (24)
dooglus (22)
dexX7 (20)
dgenr8 (18)
super3 (16)
kdomanski (15)
casey (15)
xanatos (14)
ENikS (13)
wtogami (12)
codler (10)
btcdrak (10)
wizeman (10)
maaku (10)
rnicoll (9)
ajweiss (8)
roques (8)
jamesob (8)
jmcorgan (8)
jordanlewis (8)
21E14 (8)
devrandom (8)
joshtriplett (8)
Nils Schneider (7)
forrestv (7)
freewil (7)
rat4 (7)
sinetek (7)
dcousens (7)
sje397 (7)
celil-kj (7)
sandakersmann (7)
runeksvendsen (7)
mrbandrews (7)
OttoAllmendinger (6)
mgiuca (6)
Matoking (6)
vegard (6)
zw (6)
p2k (6)
JoelKatz (6)
jrmithdobbs (6)
ashleyholman (6)
dertin (6)
Andreas Schildbach (6)
mndrix (5)
r000n (5)
roybadami (5)
vinniefalco (5)
Whit Jack (5)
fcicq (5)
ptschip (5)
maraoz (5)
federicobond (5)
alexanderkjeldaas (5)
robbak (5)
rdponticelli (5)
...
sorry I ran out of gas/time.  So, pretty clearly "most" don't appear on the link from Blockstream.

[Crazygreek]

In order to be able to scale larger than Visa network, Bitcoin needs to offer something more concurrent than Visa network. Right now even the block size problem has no chosen way of resolving, and Visa offers absolutely incomparable amount of transactions per hour. Until this problem and many others get resolved, Bitcoin has nothing to offer against Visa.

[chopstick]

In order to be able to scale larger than Visa network, Bitcoin needs to offer something more concurrent than Visa network. Right now even the block size problem has no chosen way of resolving, and Visa offers absolutely incomparable amount of transactions per hour. Until this problem and many others get resolved, Bitcoin has nothing to offer against Visa.

From the man satoshi himself:

"The existing Visa credit card network processes about 15 million Internet purchases per day worldwide. Bitcoin can already scale much larger than that with existing hardware for a fraction of the cost. It never really hits a scale ceiling." - Satoshi

"The eventual solution will be to not care how big the blockchain gets." - Satoshi

https://forum.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-discussion/the-eventual-solution-will-be-to-not-care-how-big-it-the-bitcoin-blockchain-gets-t6196.html

Satoshi intended for everything to be on the blockchain. He knew node operators would eventually need to be datacenter-size, but still, it's a problem that is many many years off. There is no reason not to increase the blocksize right now to 2mb, since it won't hurt node operators right now at that level. Unless of course your whole business model is to profit eternally off sidechains *cough borgstream cough*.

[chopstick]

By the way, the satoshi quotes posted in this thread have now been deleted numerous times off of r/bitcoin

Censorship in action.

All hail our new Blockstream overlords... resistance is futile

I think that is what  they are trying to say anyway.

[johnyj]

Everyone that is against core's road map is wrong, including Satoshi

[adamstgBit]

Bitcoin Core contributors (Ordered by number of commits);

Wladimir J. van der Laan (3398)
Gavin Andresen (1100)
Pieter Wuille (966)
Cory Fields (332)
TheBlueMatt (288)
jonasschnelli (246)
Luke-Jr (239)
Gregory Maxwell (195)
MarcoFalke (128)
fanquake (118)
jtimon (112)
...
...
sorry I ran out of gas/time.  So, pretty clearly "most" don't appear on the link from Blockstream.

notice how Gavin Andresen appears in your list but is no longer allowed to commit anything to Blockstream i mean bitcoinCore

[adamstgBit]

I sincerely believe they have the overall good of Bitcoin *and* the users of it foremost in their minds.

I believe the good in poeple, gets ripped away when there's less than 50$ on the table.

[franky1]

notice how Gavin Andresen appears in your list but is no longer allowed to commit anything to Blockstream i mean bitcoinCore

notice how adam back(blockstream) has not been shown to be involved in bitcoin... yet.. well shhhh lets not say

there are othernames too. but shhh lets not say, lets instead pretend that blockstream doesnt have veto power

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

Gavin is hoping that everyone is going to want to see "The Return Of The King" but I think that most of us actually would prefer to listen to a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Kings.

Indeed, one of their best albums.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

So, one very large transaction with numerous sigops leads to the quadratic growth.  Hmm, so blindly increasing the block size is asking for trouble.  How many of these troublesome transactions are launched against us recently?  Or is it an unexploited vulnerability?
Perhaps we could increase the block size *and* constrain sigops/transaction until we get SegWit out the door?

Well the problem is only minor at a 1 MB block size limit. Segwit should scale it down and make it linear. It should be released in April (from the initial estimates), so I don't see how you plan to deploy the block size limit and a sigops limitation in <2 months.

and now you see why a 2mb+segwit released in april with 6month grace is not a problem

i love it when lauda debunks his own doomsday scenario

having the 2mb block limit included in aprils release is easy. plus it incentivises more people to download the april version ensuring a real chance of no contention, instead of having upgrades every couple months EG march april july. which just mess with the community too much

That is a valid point. There is no reason why the code can't be in the April client, with miners only triggered to make the big blocks if there is both consensus (95%) *and* nearly full blocks.

That way if segwit does what we believe it will, the 2MB blocks never happen. But if number of transactions making it into blocks is large enough that even with segwit the blocks are full, the code is already in the clients.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

For example, trigger the 2MB fork iff the last 1000 blocks used > 920 MB. That's about a weeks worth of blocks.

EDIT
Specify the check to happen every 1000 blocks starting from block X.

Once it happens, the next version of the client can just hard code 2 MB since checking every 1k blocks from X will always result in a true.

[BTCBinary]

It seems to me that this explains a lot and why a block size increase is perfectly clear to solve the blocksize problem as well as the fee charge increase.

[franky1]

For example, trigger the 2MB fork iff the last 1000 blocks used > 920 MB. That's about a weeks worth of blocks.

EDIT
Specify the check to happen every 1000 blocks starting from block X.

Once it happens, the next version of the client can just hard code 2 MB since checking every 1k blocks from X will always result in a true.

easier to code something like. current block minus 1000 that way its checking the last 1000 blocks constantly. rather then a precise group (which can be attacked)

EG if it was check block 415000 to 416000 then miners could play around and make small 415000-415500 then have 500 large blocks.
then the following week have 416000-416500 as large blocks and then 500 small blocks. which would not cause the trigger because
415000-416000 only has 500large blocks
416000-417000 only has 500large blocks

but it it is checking the last recent 1000 blocks. then at 416500 it sees there are 1000 large blocks going all the way back to 415500

and as for the 95%.. well no where is it ever possible to get 95%. not even core v0.12 combined with v0.11 has 95% yet they claim they are the consensus.

a fairer measure is 75%, because. after all 75% is not the active trigger, it is just the loading of the gun. giving people 3months(lukejr's estimates) 6months(my preference) 12months(blockstream preference) to upgrade and become statistics above 75% before the trigger is pulled

[SpiryGolden]

Everyone that is against core's road map is wrong, including Satoshi

See? This is the ideology that has poisoned the whole Blockstream supporters. I can't call it Bitcoin Core anymore. Cause it's to obvious.

This kind of ideology. This requires a change! We need to switch to Bitcoin Classic as soon as possible. SegWit will be there also.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

and as for the 95%.. well no where is it ever possible to get 95%. not even core v0.12 combined with v0.11 has 95% yet they claim they are the consensus.

a fairer measure is 75%, because. after all 75% is not the active trigger, it is just the loading of the gun. giving people 3months(lukejr's estimates) 6months(my preference) 12months(blockstream preference) to upgrade and become statistics above 75% before the trigger is pulled

Clients don't matter all that much, it's 95% of miners that really matter. With only a small percentage of miners reject 2MB blocks the fork that rejects > 1 MB blocks will be incredibly slow causing clients to update.

[Lauda]

this is a prime example of ivory tower thinking getting in the way of real solutions that matter to real poeple.

No. You don't get to define what we allow in the system and what we don't, certainly not when it was possible all this time. What Gavin proposed is a hacky workaround, nothing more.

this is a prime example of bad project management, we can't achieve any kind of consensus without first agreeing to what the main goals of the project is.

Stop being greedy and stop wanting everyone to use Bitcoin just because the price would be high. This would help you see things more clearly.

Censorship in action.

If censorship was present, you would have been banned long ago for mentioning anything, ergo it isn't.

This kind of ideology. This requires a change! We need to switch to Bitcoin Classic as soon as possible. SegWit will be there also.

No. Contentious HF's are what got us here in the first place.

[ATguy]

this is a prime example of bad project management, we can't achieve any kind of consensus without first agreeing to what the main goals of the project is.

Stop being greedy and stop wanting everyone to use Bitcoin just because the price would be high. This would help you see things more clearly.

The problem is there are people who want regulate how many people can use Bitcoin by keeping current blocksize limit. The most obvious conflict of interest are altcoins which can only get used more at the Bitcoin expence, and those who invested in Bitcoin (speculative or in infrastructure) are mostly not in favour of artifically limited blocksize because it restrict how many people can conveniently use Bitcoin.

The question is not whether Bitcoin can scale to the Visa network but whether Bitcoin can scale to just keep up the demand, because there is not such high demand for Bitcoin to be used for Visa levels in near future. And im sure the answer is yes.

[SpiryGolden]

This kind of ideology. This requires a change! We need to switch to Bitcoin Classic as soon as possible. SegWit will be there also.

No. Contentious HF's are what got us here in the first place.

Oh that's Core plan if Classic will have the majority?. Other then that I do not see any danger if people could get a long and let Bitcoin , be Bitcoin! That's it. For real. Lets be humans for a moment. This is what Bitcoin was meant to be. You guys just want it to be your play toy with weak arguments pushing off-chain solution promoted ...be we know who. So yes. Let Bitcoin be pure Bitcoin. And other off-chain solution to be off-chain in their own eco-system.

What is so hard to be understood? This is the Bitcoin experience. When you first found out about Bitcoin, I am sure you were aware of all this and the fact that Hard Forks are a necessity in evolution of a great software.

SegWit forked, that was it! Simple as that, they didn't even knew what was the reason behind it, it won't be ready for April and the roadmap will remain just dust in eyes.

We need to see the reality and again to respect Bitcoin vision since it's creation. Block Size increase via Hard fork was on roadmap since Satoshi made the limit itself. Classic already gained 25% of nodes + other nodes in a quantum of 31% of network. While Bitcoin Core is losing ground every day. Once it goes 50/50 I can say Bitcoin Core is doomed to be left behind. And I can see it happen in maximum 1 month more probably when Bitcoin Core will fail to launch Segwit on time.

[Lauda]

What is so hard to be understood? This is the Bitcoin experience. When you first found out about Bitcoin, I am sure you were aware of all this and the fact that Hard Forks are a necessity in evolution of a great software.

They aren't. I have no idea where you got that from.

SegWit forked, that was it! Simple as that, they didn't even knew what was the reason behind it, it won't be ready for April and the roadmap will remain just dust in eyes.

This is a very bad FUD attempt. It happened due to some people running an older version (there were changes between v2 and v3). In other words, it is irrelevant as this won't and can't happen on the main net.

The question is not whether Bitcoin can scale to the Visa network but whether Bitcoin can scale to just keep up the demand, because there is not such high demand for Bitcoin to be used for Visa levels in near future. And im sure the answer is yes.

You can't know that because of two reasons (as an example, they are more): 1) You don't know what the demand is represented as (e.g. TX volume? Not necessarily as somebody could be creating a lot of TXs themselves) nor how much demand there is going to be; 2) You don't know how the technology is going to improve over the years. Anyhow, with Segwit around the corner I don't understand any 'urgency' for a 2 MB block size limit.