Why the Bitcoin rules can't change (reading time ~5min)

[wtfvanity]

In the worst imaginable case, the ability to validate the currency becomes more expensive, not impossible. As long as it is not impossible, Bitcoin does not become a centralized payment system and you still have sovereign control over your money. Its still peer to peer, at worse its peer group to peer group. Of course this won't happen, because the devs are well aware of the dangers and are reasonable people who continue to put the technology and its users first. Reasonable people can come to compromises that provide for the greatest benefit for all parties.

What makes you so sure that this is the case? Everyone can be corrupted. And given the personality pattern I've observed from part of the TBF members, I'd suppose they're even more prone to corruption than the average Joe. But I don't expect the majority to agree with that.

I feel at some not so distant point in future I'll be forced to evaluate alternatives to Bitcoin, because Bitcoin's features I've enthusiastically embraced in the beginning will have been changed beyond recognition.

Because if the core devs become corrupter, the users of the community will not accept a fork to centralization. The 50 threads about block size limit changes are stupid. You've got a dozen people crying don't destroy bitcoin and they don't know WTF they are talking about.

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[conv3rsion]

Because if the core devs become corrupter, the users of the community will not accept a fork to centralization. The 50 threads about block size limit changes are stupid. You've got a dozen people crying don't destroy bitcoin and they don't know WTF they are talking about.

I do know this, the people investing real money in Bitcoin related companies and technologies aren't doing it because they believe that its going to be a system that can only handle 7 transactions per second forever.

A wire transfer replacement technology that can only be used for high value transactions (because of high transaction costs due to artificially limited number of transactions) where the value following a transaction THEN has to be converted into another currency (since its now too expensive to spend in Bitcoins), is worth less than the current "market cap" of $300,000,000.00 that Bitcoin currently has.

Its not even digital gold at that point... I can trade a piece of physical gold for free.

[conv3rsion]

I feel at some not so distant point in future I'll be forced to evaluate alternatives to Bitcoin, because Bitcoin's features I've enthusiastically embraced in the beginning will have been changed beyond recognition.

Bitcoin will always be massively decentralized with thousands of full nodes. Just because I can't currently run a full node on my smart phone doesn't mean that it isn't decentralized. If someone can't run a full node through a 56.6k modem connection routed through TOR that doesn't mean that bitcoin isnt still massively decentralized.

The problem of finding max block size based on some type of network consensus (consisting of full nodes) will ultimately be solved, just as the solution of adjusting difficulty solved the problem of hashing power increases.

[iain]

I wonder if it might be possible to decentralise the validation process itself, in a way that lets the blockchain become much bigger, but with spotting when rules are being violated remaining cheap?

I'm thinking of mathematical proof-of-correctness tools. (Disclaimer: I don't know much about the contemporary details of such beasts. I played with one called "Lego" a long time ago... there are probably better ones now.) The idea is, a future giant blockchain would be distributed (peer-to-peer torrented) in the syntax of a giant theorem: "THEOREM 0. Under rule-set R, the genesis block is valid. PROOF: blah blah blah. THEOREM 1: Under rule-set R, if block 0 is valid then block 1 is valid. PROOF: blah blah blah. THEOREM 2: Under rule-set R, if blocks 0 and 1 are valid then block 2 is valid. PROOF: blah blah blah. (and so on)"

The proof syntax would have the "wrongness is locally detectable" property (achieved by bounded fan-in and fan-out of the dependency of parts of it on other parts). That is, if any part of the proof was wrong, either by incompetence or malice on the part of a "super-miner", the community could detect this wrongness without any one member of the community having to parse their way through the whole thing. Sceptical community members would simply point their mathematical proof-of-correctness tool at any randomly chosen part of the giant proof object; and it only takes one person to strike lucky, and alight upon the invalid part, for the wrongness to be detectable (and exhibitable to others) extremely cheaply. The news would of course then spread like wildfire. (Through Tor-like channels, if necessary in some societies.)

The consequence once the news had spread? Blocks later than the point of invalidity would then be rejected by everyone following rule-set R, even though no one of them had (within their own node) the resources to parse the whole thing from beginning to end single-handedly.

I don't know if this would meet the "self-ownership" requirements of the OP. (There might, for example, be a worry along the lines of "How do I know that this giant proof object is a proper translation of the raw blockchain, and not an imposter?". Hopefully, though, the translation process itself would be of a "wrongness is locally detectable" character.) And I wouldn't like to try and judge if this is feasible with today's proof tools - they do have a reputation for being rather slow and clumsy in their main application, proof of correctness of code (or of chip architectures). Others more knowledgeable than me might care to comment on feasibility. At any rate, I offer this idea as something for people to think about!

[Melbustus]

(disclaimer: I skimmed most of the thread, sorry if this is posted already)

hazek, wouldn't you still retain the same sovereignty you have today if the blocksize is somehow (an algorithmic code change that's agreed to now/once) changed periodically to at least roughly keep pace with Moore's law?

Obviously the details get technical and are important (and gotta consider the down-the-road case where transaction volume is mature and *not* increasing geometrically), but I think it's also important to understand there's a middle ground between keeping it at 1MB and raising the blocksize so much that small guys can't run a full node (as a full node works today).

[wtfvanity]

Its not even digital gold at that point... I can trade a piece of physical gold for free.

But you can't divide it into 10,000,000 pieces. And it's not so easy for someone say in Turkey to get his gold coin to a dude in Vancouver.

[conv3rsion]

Its not even digital gold at that point... I can trade a piece of physical gold for free.

But you can't divide it into 10,000,000 pieces. And it's not so easy for someone say in Turkey to get his gold coin to a dude in Vancouver.

There is no purpose in dividing it into 10,000,000 pieces if it costs more to transfer those pieces then they are worth.

[crazy_rabbit]

I don't understand the argument some people are making that the block size limit is OK because the main chain will only be used for relatively rare high-value transactions while new blockchains will arise to serve the masses.  Why would Bitcoins on the main blockchain hold their value if new blockchains are popping up left and right?  A few die-hard curmudgeons who don't want to change the rules isn't enough to keep the market price propped up.

Well it depends on which "smaller chain" people give their blessing to. In the alt-coin world a lot of chains have come and go- without affecting Bitcoin in anyway.


There actually already is another chain that could be perfect for running as a parallel chain- Terracoin. It's been around a few months and is pretty much a straight copy of bitcoin, with shorter block times (2 minutes), faster diff retarget, lower reward that halves every 4 years (20TRC per block). It's updated by adding the new patches for bitcoin, so it keeps the same consistency with bitcoin as well in terms of security and reliability. The address format is even the same- so there is no need to migrate addresses, your Private key for bitcoin yields the same private key for Terracoin. Although at first some people thought this would lead to confusion, the result has been the opposite. One Public key works for both TRC and BTC, making it very convenient.

The chain is young enough that an increased block size could probably be implemented without much trouble, or so many users to disturb. There is even talk about having it merge-mined to boost its security.

Currently it's traded at Vircurex, Bitparking and Zaptos exchanges. There are several Satoshi Dice like sites, and even an 'instawallet' that is in beta development. It has it's own forums as well: www.terracointalk.org (because the alt-forum is a bit of a cesspool).

Perhaps terracoin would be fertile soil to test some of these ideas? The user base is very open to testing new ideas.

[markm]

Presumably Terracoin probably has a one-megabyte max block size, like Bitcoin?

Litecoin too has more blocks per span of time, and probably also has one-megabyte max block size.

The fact that there has not yet been a mass exodus of capital to such chains seems to indicate that unproven, theoretical ability to handle more transactions per span of time, even along with faster confirmation times, is not a big enough deal to even be worth speculating serious amounts of capital on.

-MarkM-

[crazy_rabbit]

Presumably Terracoin probably has a one-megabyte max block size, like Bitcoin?

Litecoin too has more blocks per span of time, and probably also has one-megabyte max block size.

The fact that there has not yet been a mass exodus of capital to such chains seems to indicate that unproven, theoretical ability to handle more transactions per span of time, even along with faster confirmation times, is not a big enough deal to even be worth speculating serious amounts of capital on.

-MarkM-

I can't imagine why capital would leave bitcoin in mass-exodus only because of block times and block-sizes. I presume people would move slowly and only ever partially. That said, I don't think at the moment block times and block size are really a driving force between most peoples interest in bitcoin.

[markm]

Yet there do seem to be people who have a vested interest of some kind in increasing the maximum block size beyond what current nodes are comfortable with yet are seemingly also not willing or able to even come up with enough paying transactions per day to demonstrate a real need* and simultaneously demonstrate the network can even handle the current maximum.

* Some economist wrote that demand and want, or demand and desire, are totally different creatures. Want and desire are subjective, demand is objective, it is quantifiable, it is an actual number of units of some unit of account, actual dollars and cents or actual bitcoins, that kind of thing. Would it be reasonable to suggest that "need" should be measurable, like "demand", rather than being just some lobby group or chatty geek in Botswana's wish or desire or dream or hope type of thing?

-MarkM-

[Anon136]

self-ownership my ass...

are you claiming that hazek doesn't own himself?

[wtfvanity]

Its not even digital gold at that point... I can trade a piece of physical gold for free.

But you can't divide it into 10,000,000 pieces. And it's not so easy for someone say in Turkey to get his gold coin to a dude in Vancouver.

There is no purpose in dividing it into 10,000,000 pieces if it costs more to transfer those pieces then they are worth.

Okay... and those points are mutually dependent. It's still hard for you quickly transfer a full gold coin across the ocean.

[Anon136]

In the worst imaginable case, the ability to validate the currency becomes more expensive, not impossible. As long as it is not impossible, Bitcoin does not become a centralized payment system and you still have sovereign control over your money. Its still peer to peer, at worse its peer group to peer group. Of course this won't happen, because the devs are well aware of the dangers and are reasonable people who continue to put the technology and its users first. Reasonable people can come to compromises that provide for the greatest benefit for all parties.

What makes you so sure that this is the case? Everyone can be corrupted. And given the personality pattern I've observed from part of the TBF members, I'd suppose they're even more prone to corruption than the average Joe. But I don't expect the majority to agree with that.

I feel at some not so distant point in future I'll be forced to evaluate alternatives to Bitcoin, because Bitcoin's features I've enthusiastically embraced in the beginning will have been changed beyond recognition.

Because if the core devs become corrupter, the users of the community will not accept a fork to centralization. The 50 threads about block size limit changes are stupid. You've got a dozen people crying don't destroy bitcoin and they don't know WTF they are talking about.

they dont need to understand bitcoin inorder to understand that a promise was made to them. a promise that, for better or worse, the fundamental rules of the currency were concrete. let alternative cryptocurrencies solve this for us if it is infact a problem (which i think i can make a very good case for why it isnt).

[Abn0rmal]

they dont need to understand bitcoin inorder to understand that a promise was made to them. a promise that, for better or worse, the fundamental rules of the currency were concrete. let alternative cryptocurrencies solve this for us if it is infact a problem (which i think i can make a very good case for why it isnt).

Those of us who where paying attention in 2010 were promised the block size limitation was a temporary anti-flooding rule that would be removed when it was no longer needed so that Bitcoin could indeed support higher transaction rates.

If the devs changed their minds between now and then they should openly admit this. Publicly say the original plan changed, and why.  Stop lying by claiming 1 megabyte blocks were originally intended as an economic feature when anyone can debunk this by reading the old threads.

What's most appalling about this debate is the blatant dishonesty by those in favour of leaving the limits in place, even reaching up to some of the most prominent developers. Observing that dishonesty and evasion raises grave doubts in me about the viability of the project, much more so than any external attack.

[markm]

Yes.

We need to find out how large of a block size the network can support 24/7, every block that large, without problems. If it does cause problems, that is flooding, which is what that limit absolutely protects us against.

-MarkM-

[Nagato]

Since Hazek isn't very explicit, ill summarise his point.

Hazek wants to ensure that he can run a full node with whatever hardware/network he posses at that time without having to fork out additional funds or make special group funding arrangements to host a node in a datacenter.

Personally i can accept a Block size increase as long as a low end commodity PC with an average broadband connection can run as a full node(Should cover 90% of people with PCs). Note that miners will need a much faster connection than full nodes to reduce orphan rates + investment in ASICs.

CPU wise, this is not a problem today, nor will it ever be. You could run a full node on your average low-end smartphone CPU. Even if we were to scale block size by 100x, your average CPU could handle it(Not for mining, as speed is paramount in mining). Plus if need be, much of the intensive processing could be offloaded to the GPU.

Disk Space wise, an increase of block size by 100x would not be an issue once pruning is implemented. Big Bitcoin businesses and block chain explorers could run archival nodes which provide all blocks.

Network wise,  256Kbps could keep up with a 10MB block size if it were running 24/7. For a 1Mbps connection, you would need to run it 6hrs a day.

As we can see the network connection is the biggest hindrance to increasing block size, but a 10MB block size would still allow the majority of people to run full nodes. The biggest problems will be faced by miners who will not be able to compete with the bigger miners/pools due to connection speed. Which after some thinking, is fine as long as we have people running full nodes to "vote"(not relaying) against any predatory changes that large mining pools may introduce.

[tvbcof]

they dont need to understand bitcoin inorder to understand that a promise was made to them. a promise that, for better or worse, the fundamental rules of the currency were concrete. let alternative cryptocurrencies solve this for us if it is infact a problem (which i think i can make a very good case for why it isnt).

Those of us who where paying attention in 2010 were promised the block size limitation was a temporary anti-flooding rule that would be removed when it was no longer needed so that Bitcoin could indeed support higher transaction rates.

If the devs changed their minds between now and then they should openly admit this. Publicly say the original plan changed, and why.  Stop lying by claiming 1 megabyte blocks were originally intended as an economic feature when anyone can debunk this by reading the old threads.

Many of us have felt that Bitcoin was advertised as a peer-2-peer solution where a large percentage of the participants in the economy were capable of being peers.  'peers' were never advertised as being people who could afford datacenter resources, and many of us to not trust a solution which requires such resources in order to function.

So, one group was sold a bill of goods, and unfortunately a lot of people in either group bought it.  Whether this 'false advertising' was deliberate I don't know and largely doubt.  I expect that even for those who did recognize the issue, kicking the can down the road was the path of least resistance.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=84247.msg933058#msg933058

What's most appalling about this debate is the blatant dishonesty by those in favour of leaving the limits in place, even reaching up to some of the most prominent developers. Observing that dishonesty and evasion raises grave doubts in me about the viability of the project, much more so than any external attack.

For my part, I feel more comfortable with a solution in which decisions are made in a transparent manner even if it means that people who have different points of view than my own have a voice.  I think it is possible to hold a variety of competing points of view without being 'dishonest'.

Hiding or discounting one point of view and decision making processes would create the most doubt in my mind.

[markm]

As we can see the network connection is the biggest hindrance to increasing block size, but a 10MB block size would still allow the majority of people to run full nodes. The biggest problems will be faced by miners who will not be able to compete with the bigger miners/pools due to connection speed. Which after some thinking, is fine as long as we have people running full nodes to "vote"(not relaying) against any predatory changes that large mining pools may introduce.

Also consider most so called "miners", or many many of them anyway, are actually just "hashers" who never see a block...

...So maybe we should make that really clear, so people aaren't thinking they cannot fill their house with coffeewarmers or run a few mini-rigs in their basement or even some full rigs in their garage, or heck, all the above.

Just being a "hasher" is pretty much trivial bandwidth needed, yes?

-MarkM-

[Kempelen]

For my part, I feel more comfortable with a solution in which decisions are made in a transparent manner even if it means that people who have different points of view than my own have a voice.  I think it is possible to hold a variety of competing points of view without being 'dishonest'.

Hiding or discounting one point of view and decision making processes would create the most doubt in my mind.

Every one of your posts exudes such a slimy malignancy that I want to take a shower after reading them.