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

[AliceGored]

Whatever; I've removed Core 0.12 and am now running Classic 0.12.  I am unsettled.

You are a great example. You studied, you did your math, you weighed in all sides. Even more, you really tried to side with Bitcoin Core and understand them as much as possible. In the end you made your choice. This is a great example of Bitcoin freedom of choice. You just took part of the amazing democratic system that Bitcoin has build in since it's creation. The right too choose what you think is best for the network. But with your decision comes great implication one of them is being wrongfully judged by other sides. I didn't judged you for siding with Bitcoin Core. Yet they will judge you harsh for siding with Classic.


This should be the right of every users to do. The right too choose the best possible code. At the moment Bitcoin Classic is one, and yes they will include SegWit once the code is finished. Why is hidden from people view? Well it's in best interest of Blockstream. And it will spend as much as it can to be it like that. To hide people right too chose and to mask this debate as much as possible.

It's almost like he doesn't have $76 million of other peoples' money riding on not understanding. If miners blindly bloat blocks with free tx, the incentives of the system never worked to begin with. No sense in trying to rube goldberg yourself out of that mess, unless you've got pre-ipo stock [and personal pride(!)] riding on it.

[Lauda]

SegWit is usefull and Bitcoin Core should start cooperate with Bitcoin Classic to get both activated, SegWit and BIP109. Without this, both activations will be much more difficult

Cooperate with a high school science project? Interesting suggestion. A combination of both would be too much and BIP109 is really useless with its added limitations (a 2 MB block size limit without those is better).

Did it increase by tenfold in 5 years? Not even close. Satoshi did not have the adequate data here.

There is a lot of processing power being untapped right now. This is typically found in GPUs though:

The max radeon single card (not a 2x) of 2008 was, the 4870 doing
1.2 TFLOP (single) / 0.24 TFLOP (double) / 115gb/s ram
The max radeon single card (not a 2x) of 2015 was R9 Fury 9 doing:
8.6 TFLOP (single) / 0.53 TFLOP (double) / 512 gb/s ram

Two things: 1) I didn't ask for GPUs; 2) Still not tenfold.

You didn't logic it correctlly. the block size limit was used to protect against "poison" blocks. The block size limit is in the way of natural growth.

There's nothing natural about it.

A different solution to "poison" blocks exists now so block size limit is redundant. Segwit has nothing to do with any of this

It isn't a solution. It is a workaround that prevents certain types of transactions.

You are a great example. You studied, you did your math, you weighed in all sides. Even more, you really tried to side with Bitcoin Core and understand them as much as possible. In the end you made your choice. This is a great example of Bitcoin freedom of choice. .

1) He certainly didn't "study" enough and is unaware of a lot of things (e.g. Segwit benefits).
2) The math is high school level and provides inadequate data.
3) It is freedom of choice as long as one sides with Classic, right? Nonsense. Wake me up when the project gets real developers. Seems switching people over was easier than I thought.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

By Moore's Law, we can expect hardware speed to be 10 times faster in 5 years and 100 times faster in 10. Even if Bitcoin grows at crazy adoption rates, I think computer speeds will stay ahead of the number of transactions.

Did it increase by tenfold in 5 years? Not even close. Satoshi did not have the adequate data here.

There is a lot of processing power being untapped right now. This is typically found in GPUs though:

Not in my GPUs.

I typically use Intel HD when my processor / board supports it.

When I build a Xeon box without Intel HD GPU, well then *if* I install a video card at all it is Geforce 405 w/ 512MB of RAM, clearly not a powerhouse as it gets all the power it needs from the PCIe bus meaning it at most pulls 512W (that model is intended for OEMs but you can find it you search. Also comes in 1GB of RAM but 512 MB suffices for me)

even that low power GPU is probably better than any CPU no?

Not sure, it sure as hell isn't better with the crappy open source nvidia driver. Maybe with the proprietary kernel tainting driver it is.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

SegWit is usefull and Bitcoin Core should start cooperate with Bitcoin Classic to get both activated, SegWit and BIP109. Without this, both activations will be much more difficult

Cooperate with a high school science project? Interesting suggestion. A combination of both would be too much and BIP109 is really useless with its added limitations (a 2 MB block size limit without those is better).

Did it increase by tenfold in 5 years? Not even close. Satoshi did not have the adequate data here.

There is a lot of processing power being untapped right now. This is typically found in GPUs though:

The max radeon single card (not a 2x) of 2008 was, the 4870 doing
1.2 TFLOP (single) / 0.24 TFLOP (double) / 115gb/s ram
The max radeon single card (not a 2x) of 2015 was R9 Fury 9 doing:
8.6 TFLOP (single) / 0.53 TFLOP (double) / 512 gb/s ram

Two things: 1) I didn't ask for GPUs; 2) Still not tenfold.

You didn't logic it correctlly. the block size limit was used to protect against "poison" blocks. The block size limit is in the way of natural growth.

There's nothing natural about it.

A different solution to "poison" blocks exists now so block size limit is redundant. Segwit has nothing to do with any of this

It isn't a solution. It is a workaround that prevents certain types of transactions.

You are a great example. You studied, you did your math, you weighed in all sides. Even more, you really tried to side with Bitcoin Core and understand them as much as possible. In the end you made your choice. This is a great example of Bitcoin freedom of choice. .

1) He certainly didn't "study" enough and is unaware of a lot of things (e.g. Segwit benefits).
2) The math is high school level and provides inadequate data.
3) It is freedom of choice as long as one sides with Classic, right? Nonsense. Wake me up when the project gets real developers. Seems switching people over was easier than I thought.

Jeff and Gavin are fake developers. Luke Jr. is real. Check.

[Lauda]

Jeff and Gavin are fake developers.

You obviously don't understand what was meant by "real". I still stand by my statement. Both have had contributions to Bitcoin, but they are not as big as you think (especially lacking in lately (some time prior to Classic)). Gavin would be better off being a speak such as Antonopoulos. Besides, Garzik doesn't even agree with the grace period introduced in BIP109 at all (said 3-6 months should be a minimum) yet Gavin ignored him completely on that one.

Luke Jr. is real. Check.

Might be a bit arrogant and unusual at times, but still is.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Jeff and Gavin are fake developers. Luke Jr. is real. Check.

You obviously don't understand what was meant by "real". I still stand by my statement. Both have had contributions to Bitcoin, but they are not as big as you think (especially lacking in lately (some time prior to Classic)). Gavin would be better off being a speak such as Antonopoulos. Besides, Garzik doesn't even agree with the grace period introduced in BIP109 at all (said 3-6 months should be a minimum) yet Gavin ignored him completely on that one.

I'm not any happier about the prospect of a contentious hard frok than you are. But P2P Settlement Layer just doesn't have the same ring to it. Popular opinion is that Core has lost the plot. 

[Lauda]

Popular Minority opinion is that Core has lost the plot. 

Fixed that for you.

[SpiryGolden]

Luke Jr. is real. Check.

Might be a bit arrogant and unusual at times, but still is.

Lauda, even if we have our big divergences I think you will laugh at these ones also.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/4936kw/lukejr_is_a_seriously_a_super_crazy_person_quotes/

A bit is an understatement regarding Luke Jr., sadly yes we do have people will mental issues as part of Bitcoin Core development team. Which is sad, even more sad Luke Jr. isn't the only one.

Anyway Lauda, I know you really hate me and yet you have kept your integrity keeping this discussion on Bitcoin discussion topic and also not banning those who contest you. I do respect that. I respect debating and I do accept and agree with you that SegWit is a good feature but it isn't enough sadly.

I do respect others decision to stick with Bitcoin Blockstream Core and I know why also, and I understand why. Because they are satisfied that they somehow do something to increase a bit the capacity of the network, not much, but at least they have a roadmap and a slight increase. We gained that after almost 2 years of debating and splits and people quiting and a lot of drama.

I want to have Bitcoin in safe hands and I do consider Jeff & Gavin are good leaders. Regarding developers we both know that some of Core developers will move in Classic and also anybody with experience can join, if we don't have superstars is not an issue in my opinion.

Bitcoin Core still has chances to redeem themselves if they put on roadmap a 2MB Blocksize increase. In the meeting from Hong Kong they promised that that's why they got the pools by their side. But it isn't stated in roadmap.

Also regarding your correction of Minority .....that minority is increasing leaving only a majority of 68% which is losing ground. Lets imagine that on /r/Bitcoin was a topic "Choose your network" with a very detailed explanation of each version of Bitcoin and the effects, correctly written ofc, unbiased.

What you think it would happen?

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Popular Minority opinion is that Core has lost the plot.  

Fixed that for you.

I haven't been following the fake node war too closely. I'll take your word for this.

not much, but at least they have a roadmap and a slight increase. We gained that after almost 2 years  

See, this is a popular opinion. People everywhere think maybe our balls dropped off. If we're going to grow the user base we have to take risks. 

[topiOleg]

Jeff and Gavin are fake developers. Luke Jr. is real. Check.

You obviously don't understand what was meant by "real". I still stand by my statement. Both have had contributions to Bitcoin, but they are not as big as you think (especially lacking in lately (some time prior to Classic)).

I find interesting correlation between Bitcoin price increase and Jeff + Gavin number of github commits to Bitcoin. Maybe when both become very active again the Bitcoin price will not stagnate anymore. Big hope in this, so we need competetion because with Blockstream, there is not much hope in Bitcoin price increase when they dont feel the need to keep the Bitcoin adoption unrestricted, some of them even feels blocks should be lowered (thus the amount of people using Bitcoin) ! 

[YarkoL]

A bit is an understatement regarding Luke Jr., sadly yes we do have people will mental issues as part of Bitcoin Core development team. Which is sad, even more sad Luke Jr. isn't the only one.

By no means. For example, I have some "mental issues", that is, I entertain some notions
that great deal of people may deem crazy. And since quite a lot of Bitcoiners are
of somewhat individualistic bent, I take it as given that I encounter a
lot of notions here that seem to myself crazy or reprehensible.

Thankfully none of that matters in the least with regard to the issues we are
discussing here.

[sgbett]

You didn't logic it correctlly. the block size limit was used to protect against "poison" blocks. The block size limit is in the way of natural growth.

There's nothing natural about it.

A different solution to "poison" blocks exists now so block size limit is redundant. Segwit has nothing to do with any of this

It isn't a solution. It is a workaround that prevents certain types of transactions.

If Bitcoin adoption continues then natural growth occurs!ergo he block size limit is in the way. This is a reasonable assertion so what followed still stands. If you refute that Bitcoin adoption is going to continue than you have a point. Do you refute that. Do you think Bitcoin will not grow?

Given that Bitcoin will continue to grow and that there is a known lead time to safely deploy code that removes the limit (75% activation and 28 days grace) and that it cannot be reliably known that Bitcoin growth will not exceed current limits and that exceeding those limits affects the normal operation of the network then that code must be deployed now to mitigate the risk of the network not being able to operate normally.

Certain types of transactions are the problem. Excluding those types of transactions is a solution.

It's a workaround the same way the 1MB block size limit was.

If it causes problems and it can be solved differently then it can be removed.

[johnyj]

Everything belongs to core! 

[Lauda]

I haven't been following the fake node war too closely. I'll take your word for this.

The number of nodes is a unreliable metric, especially in a short amount of time.

Lauda, even if we have our big divergences I think you will laugh at these ones also. https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/4936kw/lukejr_is_a_seriously_a_super_crazy_person_quotes/
A bit is an understatement regarding Luke Jr., sadly yes we do have people will mental issues as part of Bitcoin Core development team. Which is sad, even more sad Luke Jr. isn't the only one.

No. I'm not going to attack an individual because of their beliefs in this case. You can be a huge nutjob and still be a great developer/engineer. These attacks on individuals help noone.

Anyway Lauda, I know you really hate me and yet you have kept your integrity keeping this discussion on Bitcoin discussion topic and also not banning those who contest you. I do respect that. I respect debating and I do accept and agree with you that SegWit is a good feature but it isn't enough sadly.

AFAIK nobody was ever banned due to a difference in opinions. I would never punish someone because of such. Why isn't Segwit enough?

We gained that after almost 2 years of debating and splits and people quiting and a lot of drama.

So the block size increase was supposed to happen in 2014? This doesn't make sense.

I want to have Bitcoin in safe hands and I do consider Jeff & Gavin are good leaders. Regarding developers we both know that some of Core developers will move in Classic and also anybody with experience can join, if we don't have superstars is not an issue in my opinion.

Trace Mayer: I would like to watch a basketball game with evenly skilled players on both sides, but really we have Jordon's bulls and then we have a couple of junior high school player one the other side. It is so unevenly matched that it makes you wonder why there's even a debate at all. On the other side (Classic) you have Gavin Andersen, Mike Hearn (note: quit already), Jeff Garzik and that's pretty much it...
There is unanimous agreement among developers like 23 out of 25 (Garzik, and Andersen). Why is it that the two people who disagree haven't really contributed any significant code in years?

You have to admit that he makes a good point here. He's asking for commits and that's what would matter from this viewpoint. You'd also have to admit that Classic is relying on the work of Core/Core contributors helping Classic (if it comes to a fork).

Also regarding your correction of Minority .....that minority is increasing leaving only a majority of 68% which is losing ground. Lets imagine that on /r/Bitcoin was a topic "Choose your network" with a very detailed explanation of each version of Bitcoin and the effects, correctly written ofc, unbiased.

No. That number is randomly picked. There is no way to measure exactly how much of the total ecosystem (miners, developers, users, merchants) are in support of a contentious HF.

[n0ne]

It is possible to grow larger than the visa network with the current user rate in accordance to the time of existence.

[btcusury]

The elephant in the room just will not go away though. The limit was a temporary fix.

You do realise that a block as big as 64 MB will take a lot longer than 10 minutes to verify on anything but the most costly hardware?

(so if Satoshi had "got it right" with the original block size then Bitcoin wouldn't be able to even produce blocks as quickly as 10 minutes and no-one but corporations would be able to afford to even run full nodes - but hey who cares about inconvenient truths such as those)

Premise:
- 64MB blocks are allowed
- 64MB blocks take over 10 minutes to verify

Question:
What financial incentive exists for a miner to produce such a block?

That's not even really the appropriate question. The real question you should be asking is "What would prevent someone who wants to destroy the network from producing such a block?"

But you don't ask that because ... (you tell me).

[David Rabahy]

I am truly unsettled; I have switched from Core 0.11 to Classic 0.11 to Core 0.12 to Classic 0.12 and it is totally possible/likely I will switch again.  Perhaps I will try using more advanced mathematics, above and beyond high school maths.

#0: Reducing unproductive contention in the Bitcoin community is a personal goal.

#1: Right now my top interest is in the vulnerability to transactions with lots of inputs that lead to long compute times for verifications.  One wonders why we don't see bad actors using this against Bitcoin relentlessly.  Maybe there are less malicious folks attacking than I hear about?  Maybe the bad guys don't know how much this can hurt?

#2: Secondarily I would like to see a concerted effort be made to 1) educate users about setting fees well to facilitate quick confirmations, i.e. to avoid long/painful/anxiety-causing commit times and 2) enhancing wallets to make it automatic and default to have high enough fees.

#3: Thirdly; I do highly prefer adoption much more than increasing fees which means to me capacity.  Increasing fees will have to come eventually but in the meantime I would happily sacrifice fees until adoption is really widespread.

#4: Fourthly; Is there something to the Bitcoin Unlimited stuff?

#5: Lastly; all of those other features/functions like transaction malleability, etc.  Perhaps these should be higher on my list but I haven't dug into them yet; sorry.

With those in mind;

block size limit, e.g. 2MB; helps with #3, hurts #1, we should resist doing it just because it seems obvious, obvious is not a reliable attribute

SegWit; helps with #3, hurts #1, introduces other complexities that might have subtle consequences

limit inputs: all by itself this is great for #1, seems simple enough, workaround is trivial, i.e. create multiple small transactions

[Lauda]

SegWit; helps with #3, hurts #1, introduces other complexities that might have subtle consequences

It doesn't hurt number one: It either 1) Leaves #1 unchanged; 2) Improves #2 due to linear scaling.

#4: Fourthly; Is there something to the Bitcoin Unlimited stuff?

Not really, no.

Lastly; all of those other features/functions like transaction malleability, etc.  Perhaps these should be higher on my list but I haven't dug into them yet; sorry.

As an example, Mt.Gox claimed that the "hack" occurred due to transactions malleability (I don't want to get into this in depth as some believes differentiating theories; that's why I said "claimed").

3) New mechanism for adding OPcodes
4) More flexible security model (fraud proofs)
5) Potential bandwidth decrease for SPV nodes.

You should look into those. Even Gavin praises Segwit.

[adamstgBit]

The elephant in the room just will not go away though. The limit was a temporary fix.

You do realise that a block as big as 64 MB will take a lot longer than 10 minutes to verify on anything but the most costly hardware?

(so if Satoshi had "got it right" with the original block size then Bitcoin wouldn't be able to even produce blocks as quickly as 10 minutes and no-one but corporations would be able to afford to even run full nodes - but hey who cares about inconvenient truths such as those)

Premise:
- 64MB blocks are allowed
- 64MB blocks take over 10 minutes to verify

Question:
What financial incentive exists for a miner to produce such a block?

That's not even really the appropriate question. The real question you should be asking is "What would prevent someone who wants to destroy the network from producing such a block?"

But you don't ask that because ... (you tell me).

Premise:
- 64MB blocks are allowed
- 64MB blocks take over 10 minutes to verify
- Someone wants to destroy the network ( 100 million dollar investment )
- Other miners want to let him destroy the network

Conclusion:
BITCOIN IS DOOOM!


there's nothing stopping the other miners from orphenning the attackers blocks... if his block give them much inconvenience for whatever reason they will orphen them...

[nickenburg]

It is possible to grow larger than the visa network with the current user rate in accordance to the time of existence.

I would say the bitcoin network definetly could get bigger then the visa network,  and the time of existance is relativly small so it still has time to grow as well.
And if you look on blockchain.info and you see al the transactions already being made.
You realize this is really big already,  the amount of people all over the world that are using it,  we could form a Bitcoin country already!