Core have been derelict in their duties.

[Lauda]

The full block situation
================

Blocks are 70% full, on average. (figure from Lauda)
This implies 30% "usable" blockspace still available for use/continued expansion. Not so.

Why would you do this? This percentage isn't even based on some 'extensive' research but rather a quick analysis. If you want more accurate numbers, then you would have to do some digging yourself and find your definition of 'non-spam transactions'.

When the above starts happening, in a week or two, It will very quickly become chaos.

Why would something extremely bad happen within the next 14 days?

With a little foresight Core could have given us 2mb couldn't they? To tide us over.

A 2 MB block size limit without added limitations is potentially unsafe.

[rizzlarolla]

Lauda,

Sorry, I wasn't trying to show your figures as inaccurate, just that 100% full blocks on average will not happen.  
I have removed ref to you in OP. (I only used your name to show I hadn't "made up numbers".) I see it might have been misread.
I have also tried to clarify and edited my request for figures in OP. (i was not asking for "more accurate figures than Lauda's 70%" but "how many empty blocks will be produced on average")
I think it is clearer now and hope that resolve your issue?

My time frame is a bit sketchy, 2 weeks, that is guesswork. But surely soon, before segwit anyway, if bitcoin adoption is growing.
How "extremely bad" it gets depend on personal and communal thresholds/viewpoint/outcome. I never said those words.
But a fork to Classic becomes far more likely if things do get "extremely bad".
My point, Core will force a fork to Classic, as the only option to quick consensus, before things get "extremely bad".

Of course 2mb without limitations is unsafe. But those limitations could be applied. Core could have solved this.
Anyway, Core need not have planned to double the block size to 2mb. I am not calling for 2mb here.
I am saying Core could have had small block size increase/s "planned and tested" for release "if needed", as a safety net. (foresight) While they work on segwit.
Then a sudden fork to classic is less likely.

Segwit is not a done deal yet. Do core have a planned safety net option "if needed" before segwit is resolved?  

[rizzlarolla]

Bitcoin is working fine today. as expected.
Last 20 blocks, 16 full, 1 empty, 3 not full.

Expected comfirmation times - fast
Fee paying mempool backlog - very low

Congestion building today.
Last 20 blocks full.
Last 40 blocks, 38 full, 1 empty, 1 not full.

Expected comf time - delayed.
Fee paying mempool - building.

Paying extra fees today will help your tx comf time.

[rizzlarolla]

me

Empty blocks do, and will continue to be produced no matter how full the mempool.
70% full "average" blocks size is very nearly 100% full "achievable" block size.
(anyone got any figures on what % empty blocks will likely be produced even when the mempool is full?)

Last 50 blocks, 49 full (900+), 1 empty.

1 empty block in 50 is far better (less empty) than I expected to see. (with enough tx's waiting in the mempool to fill every block)
Has that been a lucky run? (has there been some other change?)

!00% average full blocks is never going to be achieved,
but at this low rate of empty blocks, 90+% average full blocks is achievable.


Edit 1 hour later.
5 blocks in 9 min. 4 of those in 5 min. All 900+ (full)
Where are the empty blocks gone?
These were prime candidates?

[AliceGored]

Centrally planned fee market ushered in during Bitcoin's infancy...

Challenge Completed!

[exstasie]

Centrally planned fee market ushered in during Bitcoin's infancy...

Challenge Completed!

Over 73% of total supply has already been mined. Halving is approaching--and block subsidy will really drop in the next several years. We are well past infancy and need to plan for adulthood. Promises of perpetually free and ultra cheap transactions without scaling solutions are not adequate to address the need for proof of work security as subsidy drops.

[AliceGored]

Centrally planned fee market ushered in during Bitcoin's infancy...

Challenge Completed!

Over 73% of total supply has already been mined. Halving is approaching--and block subsidy will really drop in the next several years. We are well past infancy and need to plan for adulthood. Promises of perpetually free and ultra cheap transactions without scaling solutions are not adequate to address the need for proof of work security as subsidy drops.

No kidding, only idiots would have the idea that miners would decide the size of their blocks.

A dictat issued from the Wizard Treehouse is much better suited to deciding production levels and pricing...

Bitcoin doesn't have any competition, especially not from companies founded and products designed and sold (2 weeks) by the Wizards themselves.

[rizzlarolla]

me

A fees market cannot fairly operate when blocks are at capacity."

should I have added "and the mempool is still full of standard fee paying tx's"



In this situation, isn't the tx price set by bitcoin user desperation?
And nothing to do with a fair and sustainable tx fee?

[exstasie]

And nothing to do with a fair and sustainable tx fee?

What mechanism would you suggest to establish a "fair" fee, rather than one that contemplates the costs to validate and relay transactions? If there is no competition for transaction relay, there is no contemplation of the costs required to maintain the system. "Sustainable" is the operative word from your post that we should focus on IMO.

[rizzlarolla]

And nothing to do with a fair and sustainable tx fee?

What mechanism would you suggest to establish a "fair" fee, rather than one that contemplates the costs to validate and relay transactions? If there is no competition for transaction relay, there is no contemplation of the costs required to maintain the system. "Sustainable" is the operative word from your post that we should focus on IMO.

I'd need to think about how to explain all that!

Do you agree/see how

"In this situation, isn't the tx price set by bitcoin user desperation?
And nothing to do with a fair and sustainable tx fee?"

Can I start there?

[adamstgBit]

And nothing to do with a fair and sustainable tx fee?

What mechanism would you suggest to establish a "fair" fee, rather than one that contemplates the costs to validate and relay transactions? If there is no competition for transaction relay, there is no contemplation of the costs required to maintain the system. "Sustainable" is the operative word from your post that we should focus on IMO.

Optimal transaction fees
miners have a real cost to including TX in the form of orphen risk.

rather than one that contemplates the costs to validate and relay transactions?

what are you referring to there? blocklimit?

[Carlton Banks]

Over 73% of total supply has already been mined. Halving is approaching--and block subsidy will really drop in the next several years. We are well past infancy and need to plan for adulthood. Promises of perpetually free and ultra cheap transactions without scaling solutions are not adequate to address the need for proof of work security as subsidy drops.

No kidding, only idiots would have the idea that miners would decide the size of their blocks.

A dictat issued from the Wizard Treehouse is much better suited to deciding production levels and pricing...

Bitcoin doesn't have any competition, especially not from companies founded and products designed and sold (2 weeks) by the Wizards themselves.

How many multi-billion dollar commodities have you built from your Wizard Treehouse? Less than one?

[gmaxwell]

Blocks are always full. When they're not a million bytes, they're less because a miner chose to limit the capacity further, but to whatever capacity they were allowed they're full. There are spam generators that generate a constant flood of minimal fee-rate transactions constantly 24/7... a node with all anti-spam defeated and no mempool limit quickly ends up with hundreds of megabytes of transactions.

This isn't a problem, it's how the system works... and it is unavoidable in a decentralized system ---  imagine instead that there were no limits at all (not in the consensus rules, not by miner collusion)-- that would be the necessary criteria for blocks to not be "full" and in that world a single kid with a while loop could throw hundreds of gigabytes of data into blocks and rapidly DOS the whole system into the ground.

When you get fed hype around "full" blocks, you're being fed a fake emergency narrative.

[adamstgBit]

a single kid with a while loop could throw hundreds of gigabytes of data into blocks and rapidly DOS the whole system into the ground.

miners would make a 1GB block and risk a 100% chance of getting orphaned? for wat? 0.01BTC in fees?

[exstasie]

And nothing to do with a fair and sustainable tx fee?

What mechanism would you suggest to establish a "fair" fee, rather than one that contemplates the costs to validate and relay transactions? If there is no competition for transaction relay, there is no contemplation of the costs required to maintain the system. "Sustainable" is the operative word from your post that we should focus on IMO.

Optimal transaction fees
miners have a real cost to including TX in the form of orphen risk.

That addresses why a miner may or may not include transactions in a block (cost/benefit in profitability analysis). Not the basis for the fee-cost metric for the bitcoin network. Here is an informative post from Mark Friedenbach on that subject, including what I think are superior proposals to address the very low costs to DOS attack the network (inherent in bitcoin's design): https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-November/011662.html

rather than one that contemplates the costs to validate and relay transactions?

what are you referring to there? blocklimit?

I'm referring to the nature of optimal fees as "fee-per-kilobyte" i.e. determined on the basis of size and therefore, cost to validate and relay. A miner has no incentive to incur costs to validate and relay no-fee transactions.

[Carlton Banks]

a single kid with a while loop could throw hundreds of gigabytes of data into blocks and rapidly DOS the whole system into the ground.

miners would make a 1GB block and risk a 100% chance of getting orphaned? for wat? 0.01BTC in fees?

Why 100%? You're making the fallacious assumption that all miners are mining for mining's sake.

[adamstgBit]

a single kid with a while loop could throw hundreds of gigabytes of data into blocks and rapidly DOS the whole system into the ground.

miners would make a 1GB block and risk a 100% chance of getting orphaned? for wat? 0.01BTC in fees?

Why 100%? You're making the fallacious assumption that all miners are mining for mining's sake.

maybe i'm exaggerating a little, but a 1GB block will take way too long to propagate and another miner will find a sibling before the massive 1GB block propagates.
even if the attacker has enough hashing power to make his own blocks, he wouldn't be able to rapidly DOS the whole system into the ground, because these 1GB blocks would get orphaned by siblings.

[hdbuck]

a single kid with a while loop could throw hundreds of gigabytes of data into blocks and rapidly DOS the whole system into the ground.

miners would make a 1GB block and risk a 100% chance of getting orphaned? for wat? 0.01BTC in fees?

Why 100%? You're making the fallacious assumption that all miners are mining for mining's sake.

maybe i'm exaggerating a little, but a 1GB block will take way too long to propagate and another miner will find a sibling before the massive 1GB block propagates.

just stfu or fork off already man, 1MB is here for a long time.

[exstasie]

Don't worry guys. Gavin says we don't need to plan for attacks on the bitcoin network. People are too rational to attack bitcoin.

[adamstgBit]

a single kid with a while loop could throw hundreds of gigabytes of data into blocks and rapidly DOS the whole system into the ground.

miners would make a 1GB block and risk a 100% chance of getting orphaned? for wat? 0.01BTC in fees?

Why 100%? You're making the fallacious assumption that all miners are mining for mining's sake.

maybe i'm exaggerating a little, but a 1GB block will take way too long to propagate and another miner will find a sibling before the massive 1GB block propagates.

just stfu or fork off already man, 1MB is here for a long time.

i need a fork to go off on to...