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

[tvbcof]

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The thing is that these people don't post on the forums about this change.  Because they are not arguing FOR a change. They are quite happy with bitcoin is atm.
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Although I am deeply in the 'light footprint' camp, I find it equally valid that people who signed on to Bitcoin thinking that it could scale to become the world's economic system could be feeling slighted.

I honestly can say that I recognized the conflict within seconds of having a basic understanding of Bitcoin, but then I have a background in operating datacenters and dealing with fairly large amounts of data.  Even if Merkle pruning had progressed it really would not fully solve some of the more difficult scaling issues.

Neither the 'peer-2-peer' concept nor the 'replace the banks' concept were ever deprecated and I consider the Bitcoin project fairly disingenuous in this failing.  To blame individuals for their own particular differences in opinion is not really completely appropriate in my mind.

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[bg002h]

I see the block size (and frequency) as much as economic rules as the total number of coin is.  I disagree with Satoshi that it is just something that we can 'change.'

I'm part of that sticky group of people that WILL NOT accept a larger block size.  I doesn't matter what other people say; or the reasons that they give.  Frankly, I would reject (with my full node, and SPV nodes) any non-bitcoin chain.  Any block breaking the 1mb/10min avg limit will not be a bitcoin for me.


However I am not worried.  I know that Bitcoin will be just fine with a 1mb block limit; as MarkM so eloquently put is, we need to get over having only one chain, but rarther think of having a ecosystem of hundreds of merge-mined chains that all fullfill different roles.


One of the reasons, (there are many), that I work on Open Transactions is that I believe that we need secure and cryptographically auditable off-chain transactions.  Making the need for more than 7tx/s on the Bitcoin block chain much (completely?) negated.

The best part is that I am in control of this problem.  Even if every other person moves to larger (or more frequent) blocks, I know my bitcoins are safe, and for-me bitcoin will keep-on working. (well other than the attack of a drastic lower hash-rate maybe)

So yes, I think that there is AT LEAST a key 10% of the Bitcoin user population (including me) that will veto any such changes.

I would consider running two nodes...one for the slow Bitcoin with tiny block chain and one for world dominating megachain Bitcoin...there may be a use for each type of Bitcoin. 

[Rogue Star]

Except it isn't just me, there are hundreds of users (and owners of bitcoin) like me, who signed on to a system that we thought would have LOWER relative costs to verify in the future.  That one day every, even the cheapest computer, could become a full-node.

That may well be, but what does that have to do with the network management policy that currently requires blocks be less than 1MB? I silently read the forums daily and only decided to post more recently when some vocal people decided that this network management policy should be set in stone when people started asking "should we increase the limit"? The network management policy is very unlike all the other "fixed" points that make Bitcoin. It only extends Bitcoin's capability while hopefully not exposing Bitcoin to the attacks retep identified. I'm normally happy to stay on the sidelines and watch what solutions people come up with. I like to hear some thought and pause about increasing the limit, I'm a bit disturbed that anyone seriously thinks it should be fixed and that aspect of Bitcoin is perfect just the way it is. The amount of thought that went into that limit was clearly crude and haphazard compared to all the other fixed points.

By all means the community needs to explore why it needs to change, what changes need to be made, how the changes will be implemented and when the network will accept the change. I feel that anyone that seriously explores those topics will see there will be a need for a change. Maybe they will conclude that we won't need to see that change in anyone's lifetime, but I would like to see some better evidence on why they think that.

Going back to your example for the moment, I don't think the goal is necessarily valid. Assuming it is though, even the cheapest computers today can handle being a full node indefinitely even with a block size increase. The only question is how high can it go if that is the goal. Bitcoin can always choose to make trade-offs between things like fast, cheap, and good. Even if we choose all three, there is still room to increase the limit. I would hope we would trade-off a little bit off the cheap side, and increase network requirements a bit more than others might like, but I can live with modest changes if the reasoning has legs. Regardless, I want the decision to be continuously re-evaluated like every other part of Bitcoin.

It is hard to understand how anyone can want Bitcoin to stay in the dark ages forever. Anyone that says it changes the social contract hasn't been paying enough attention to all the other changes that have been happening to the code base that makes the social contract. This change should be less controversial than P2SH or overflow bug. Software is meant to evolve and Bitcoin already has.

Open Transactions is fine, but please do not conflate what it does with the block size limit and why it is there. Anyone can use whatever version of Bitcoin they want. I hope you've never upgraded. I'm sure it will continue to work just fine like all the other alt chains, until the 32-bit time stamp issue runs its course. The Bitcoin you are using now will look like a quaint dinosaur in 50 years. The "real" Bitcoin will be whatever everyone agrees to use.

[hdbuck]

bump

[calkob]

yeah people keep going on about the drain on hard drive space, you would need to have a pretty old machine for this to be a problem as far as i am concerned, most modern desktops are coming with 3TB these days.

[hdbuck]

yeah people keep going on about the drain on hard drive space, you would need to have a pretty old machine for this to be a problem as far as i am concerned, most modern desktops are coming with 3TB these days.

are you sure its not 100TB?

[franky1]

1mb full blocks where 100% of each block is full for the whole year =52.5gb a year bloat
2mb full blocks where 100% of each block is full for the whole year =105gb a year bloat
2mb+segwit where 100% of each block is full for the whole year =210gb a year bloat
2mb+segwit+confidential payment codes plus other feature flags where 100% of each block is full for the whole year =420gb a year bloat


standard basic UK cheap desktop computer at £350($500) has 3.5TB hard drive.
this allows for ATLEAST 8 years(3500/420) storage*.

average time scale a gamer upgrades their computer 6months-2years
average time an active computer user(office/computer hobbiest) upgrades their computer 2-4 years.

so storage is no issue. people will upgrade their computer before the hard drive fills.

*after all the 420gb is MAXIMUM potential. remember bitcoin was able to have true 1mb buffer allowance since 2013(unofficially 2009) yet bitcoin is not 7x52gb..
so even after 8 years harddrives will not be 420gb filled.

with all that said. having to download and validate a 1mb block in under 5 minutes is technically harder than downloading a 2mb block in 10 minutes.
also messing with the difficulty, and the blockreward to achieve a 5minute average while keeping the 21mill cap is harder to code without bugs then simply raising the limit to 2mb for 10minute average.

and if you look at monero. they have actually increased their blocktime due to bad orphan rates and other issues.

so if monero thinks that 2minutes is safe for 1mb monero, safe for 1mb litecoin etc.  but when bitcoin is also handling segit, confidential transactions and having to do things like pruning. this makes it 5x more unstable. so 10minutes is a safe processing time for all of bitcoins features compared to the processing time needed for 2009 version of bitcoin, compared to the processing time needed for 1mb of monero, compared to the processing time needed for 1mb litecoin.

in short
yes in 2009 bitcoin could have been reduced to 5 minute average without issue. but now bitcoin has grown with many more features and usability, there would be problems in multiple ways of making 5 minute blocks

[D-cryptoholic]

Distributed ledger puts both security and transparency which could possibly revolutionise the industrial supply chain soon.

[Jombrangs]

For me bitcoin rules can’t change because this set of rules is make to build a stronger foundation of the business in this industry to gain respect and trust
by following the set of rules and this called rules is for the own good of the investors inside of this business to balance the unity of the business.

[Anon136]

[CannonWarrior]

Actually there’s a possibility that bitcoin can govern the whole world if all of the countries in this world is not lack of technology and not only basing from norms and tradition
because as of now we born in the different generation and that thing called generation build some changes to the years that past and past.

[Chimecho]

Yes of course, will bitcoin in last forever because like I always said they are the best company over all companies in this business
because they are most demand business in this industry because through their credibility ability and great performances that everyone is looking out so this the reason why it is.

[Joemzz31]

I think the reason behind why bitcoin rules can’t change because this is a long life rules that makes by the owner of this business to build a braver foundation of the business in this industry

[maichimoto]

Well the title is a lie. Of course they can change and they already have changed in the past. But if this is bad news to you and you were lead to believe something else, don't fret, it's not all bad. Here, let me try and give you the bigger picture about rules in Bitcoin and who it is that you need to trust that they won't change to something you won't like.

First there's a myths that I want to address. I also want to make sure the community pays attention to this issue. Because as Ben Franklin told a woman the Americans got a republic if they can keep it (turns out they couldn't) so too I'm here to tell you that you have an excellent money system on your hands, if you can keep it.

Myth: Miners set the rules by voting

False. Miners do not vote, they validate. They check that transactions meet the rules and then they add them into a block and add it to the blockchain. If a subset of miners decide that a certain rule should be changed what happens ISN'T that all miners now validate transactions according to the new rule even if the subset has the majority of hashing power, instead a so called hard fork happens and some miners validate transactions that obey the new rules and those who stick with the old rules ignore them and by virtue of ignoring each other they split into two peer to peer networks.

But what if all miners suddenly switch to new rules? Can they do this? Is there something that stops them? Answer: YES, EVERY NON MINING FULL NODE

I mean this is critical for every Bitcoin user to understand. Bitcoin is a decentralized system, in which if you run a full node YOU HAVE A SAY in what rules are to be followed. Because once the miner adds a new block they send it around across the network and when it gets to you, your client also validates. It validates that the miner validated the transactions and added them into a block and into the blockchain following the right rules, rules that you gave your EXPLICIT consent to when you downloaded the Satoshi client. If all of the sudden all miners started validating according to some new rules, your client is coded to simply ignore them and as soon as just 1 miner following rules your client accepts as valid shows up, the network can continue to operate under these same rules.

The ONLY way for rules to ever change for you is if YOU PERSONALLY download a new client version with new rules. I cannot stress enough how important this is. This so important that it should be paramount for anyone who has any significant wealth in Bitcoin to run your own full node regardless of the costs that brings to you. I myself do it too even though I don't even use the client for anything else.

Now this doesn't mean you should never accept new rules in a new client. In fact you already did because those new rules solved a technical problem. But if you want to keep the Bitcoin money system running under the principles that it is built upon today (FINITENESS, TANGIBILITY, TRANSPARENCY, ANONYMITY, SECURITY, DECENTRALIZATION, SELF-OWNERSHIP, INTEGRITY, PRACTICALITY, RATIONALISM) it is paramount that any such rule changes do not immediately or down road preclude you from being able to run a full node. Because if you can't run a full node and you trust someone else to do it for you, then you have effectively given away your power to have say about what rules Bitcoin follows.

Right now you are a sovereign in Bitcoin. You should never give that up, under any circumstance.

What do I mean with sovereign? Well there's nothing anyone could possibly do that can make you accept rules you didn't agree with. Nothing. You yourself have to decide to consent to a rule change. But if running a full node becomes impossible for you then all that which you were told about Bitcoin, that rules virtually can't change, that it has a strict limit of 21million, ect, all these rules will then be left to be decided by a small number of super nodes and the people who control them. The second this becomes reality Bitcoin will be no different than simply a slightly more transparent Paypal. And if you don't want that you better make damn sure you can run a full node.

very true, it should be understood that running full node is important to maintain the network and its stability, same way as it's crucial for mining power to be decentralized.

[jhonnydeep87]

That's just a mere issue, bitcoin has changed by 2017 bitcoin technology is decentralized blockchain technology, security and rationalist self-ownership. Currently, there is bitcoin strength in the crypto currency in the crypto market.

[kotulo]

I earn bitcoin from airdrop campaigns and bounty campaigns
I think it can not fail, it is on the rise

[diorthotis]

wow long post bro, I got about 144 characters in before I gave up.

[Dico88]

Currently it is not a viable option for most people to be able to walk as a knot in the not-too-distant future. For the problem of bandwidth and space only increases with further bitcoin reception. Both clients who have to change with all of them are needed like developers who decide on a rule change or more people have to stop by running the full knot is when it is no longer feasible for them later.

[ned.ryerson]

The system has been working for many years and if the rules regarding bitcoin now change, then there will be a lot of dissatisfied, especially now that every day more pain and more people are entering bitcoin every day.

[arief.sutono]

I thank all parties, OP. I strongly agree. That's why when I bring up the size of the developing blockchain, the "thin client use" response doesn't work for me. Everyone must run at least one full client. And mine if possible. But the size of the developing blockchain is a problem. I would love to have a good way to share the load of having a full node among several machines in my home network. Thanks