Average block size was 0.951 MB

[Amph]

ok increase block size isn't the solution, still how the block are right now isn't acceptable either

when the average will be so high that you need to pay always higher fee, to get in the priority list, it would kill the whole "bitcoin is cheaper than fiat" thing

also the spam problem can be counterattacked with the solution the litecoin dev has worked on to make the spammer pay more, far more than what it is currently for bitcoin

[yayayo]

ok increase block size isn't the solution, still how the block are right now isn't acceptable either

Why isn't that acceptable? For me it's perfectly acceptable, since I don't buy single lollipops expecting instant confirmation.

when the average will be so high that you need to pay always higher fee, to get in the priority list, it would kill the whole "bitcoin is cheaper than fiat" thing

The average is still extremely low for all ordinary transactions. Also the "Bitcoin is cheaper than fiat"-thing is not the main attraction factor of Bitcoin. Even if Bitcoin transactions would be significantly more costly than traditional methods, Bitcoin would have a huge user base, because it is more secure and not subject to devaluation and centralized control like fiat.

also the spam problem can be counterattacked with the solution the litecoin dev has worked on to make the spammer pay more, far more than what it is currently for bitcoin

It could indeed make sense to increase the fees for especially spammy transactions (low value, big datasize).

ya.ya.yo!

[countryfree]

when the average will be so high that you need to pay always higher fee, to get in the priority list, it would kill the whole "bitcoin is cheaper than fiat" thing

I'm very much afraid of this. Not that I would mind paying some higher fees, I'm more worried about the share of BTC economy made of small transactions. I don't want, nobody wants BTC to evolve into a rich guys club only exchanging large sums and who don't mind paying substantial fees.

[beastmodeBiscuitGravy]

when the average will be so high that you need to pay always higher fee, to get in the priority list, it would kill the whole "bitcoin is cheaper than fiat" thing

I'm very much afraid of this. Not that I would mind paying some higher fees, I'm more worried about the share of BTC economy made of small transactions. I don't want, nobody wants BTC to evolve into a rich guys club only exchanging large sums and who don't mind paying substantial fees.

Lightning Network is being designed to handle all of these small transactions, instantly, and with very small fees paid to LN Hub operators. Bitcoin is about the status quo, it doesn't really matter what you want, the status quo simply is, and that means small value transactions are priced out first as they can't fit.

If you are just too impatient to wait for LN and the soft forks to Bitcoin it requires... may I suggest Litecoin? or Dogecoin? perhaps Monero?

[jonald_fyookball]

What are you on about? When Lauda said there is no "the mempool", he simply means that it's possible (actually more than likely) for nodes to have different mempools because they have different fee rules. For example, my mempool is typically less than 1MB and contains less than 1000 transactions. My node doesn't forward spam, so it rarely grows much larger than that (even during these spam attacks).

who cares?  there's still transactions not getting confirmed/processed/included-in-blocks (whatever you wanna call it).  thats the only point that matters.

An increasing number of people are realizing the path of failure core team is leading us down.

[Neptunium]

when the average will be so high that you need to pay always higher fee, to get in the priority list, it would kill the whole "bitcoin is cheaper than fiat" thing

I'm very much afraid of this. Not that I would mind paying some higher fees, I'm more worried about the share of BTC economy made of small transactions. I don't want, nobody wants BTC to evolve into a rich guys club only exchanging large sums and who don't mind paying substantial fees.

I agree with you. The Bitcoin fee is already growing too big and makes Bitcoin look unappealing and inefficient.

[Lauda]

Why isn't that acceptable? For me it's perfectly acceptable, since I don't buy single lollipops expecting instant confirmation.

Bitcoin was never designed for micro-transactions and as such will most likely not be the best solution for them (depending on what you define as a micro-transaction).

The average is still extremely low for all ordinary transactions. Also the "Bitcoin is cheaper than fiat"-thing is not the main attraction factor of Bitcoin. Even if Bitcoin transactions would be significantly more costly than traditional methods, Bitcoin would have a huge user base, because it is more secure and not subject to devaluation and centralized control like fiat.

It is pointless trying to tell this to some people. For example: Someone recently complained on r/btc about a TX fee of $50, for some TX that was over 4 KB (or 2000% bigger than normal). They pick out these weird examples and make it seem like the whole system is overly expensive (which it isn't).

I don't want, nobody wants BTC to evolve into a rich guys club only exchanging large sums and who don't mind paying substantial fees.

Nobody can prevent BTC from becoming more expensive unless you figure out a way that both defies spam and enables a high throughput. Hint: LN is the closest thing that we have for high throughput, and increasing the block size limit is trivial for these two things (neither does it defy spam nor enable high throughput).

I agree with you. The Bitcoin fee is already growing too big and makes Bitcoin look unappealing and inefficient.

If you are too cheap to pay 5-10 cents, you shouldn't complain about Bitcoin.

[beastmodeBiscuitGravy]

I don't want, nobody wants BTC to evolve into a rich guys club only exchanging large sums and who don't mind paying substantial fees.

Nobody can prevent BTC from becoming more expensive unless you figure out a way that both defies spam and enables a high throughput. Hint: LN is the closest thing that we have for high throughput, and increasing the block size limit is trivial for these two things (neither does it defy spam nor enable high throughput).

Well said as usual. Increasing the potential size of blocks would not enable higher throughput.

You don't demand to be able to afford to transfer and store London Good Delivery Bars of Gold (native Bitcoin network). You use a gold substitute cerificate, which can be settled with gold if ever necessary (Lightning Network).

[tertius993]

It's getting very annoying,2 days ago i sent a payment of 0.14 btc and it took about 3 hours to be confirmed.
This must be change asap otherwise it will hurt btc

No. Bitcoin is working as intended. Don't blame Bitcoin if: 1) You're cheap. 2) You don't know how to use it properly. I have yet to find someone that I know (which are mostly experienced members) that had "problems with this". Besides, Segwit is getting ready to be merged. The "awaited" capacity 'boost' will come with it.

When would you expect Segwit to actually be in place and delivering the "awaited" capacity 'boost' to the live network?

[Lauda]

Well said as usual. Increasing the potential size of blocks would not enable higher throughput.

No. I said it is not able to provide "high throughput", not "higher". There's a huge difference. Unless of course, you consider 6 TPS to be "high throughput". In that case I can't help you.  

When would you expect Segwit to actually be in place and delivering the "awaited" capacity 'boost' to the live network?

The miners decide how long it takes them to adopt it. I can't be the one to predict that accurately. I'd say somewhere in Q3/Q4 this year (if nothing goes severely wrong).

[beastmodeBiscuitGravy]

Well said as usual. Increasing the potential size of blocks would not enable higher throughput.

No. I said it is not able to provide "high throughput", not "higher". There's a huge difference. Unless of course, you consider 6 TPS to be "high throughput". In that case I can't help you.  

As "high" is perfectly subjective, we can always be correct, clever. I may need to use this terminology instead of "higher", thanks for the correction.

[Lauda]

As "high" is perfectly subjective, we can always be correct, clever. I may need to use this terminology instead of "higher", thanks for the correction.

It is indeed. However, "higher" throughput would also be anything > ~3 (which we currently have). I'd consider high throughput somewhere above what Visa does on average (which is 2000 TPS according to some sources).

[tertius993]

When would you expect Segwit to actually be in place and delivering the "awaited" capacity 'boost' to the live network?

The miners decide how long it takes them to adopt it. I can't be the one to predict that accurately. I'd say somewhere in Q3/Q4 this year (if nothing goes severely wrong).

But is that the point at which Segwit will start to deliver increased capacity?  From my reading (which may have misled me) I had understood that users actually had to send and receive Segwit transactions in order for it to provide that increase in capacity?  I was really wondering what was the (your) expectation for when we would be at that point?

[Lauda]

But is that the point at which Segwit will start to deliver increased capacity?  From my reading (which may have misled me) I had understood that users actually had to send and receive Segwit transactions in order for it to provide that increase in capacity?  I was really wondering what was the (your) expectation for when we would be at that point?

That is correct. As soon as some people use the updated client and interact with each other, we will see increased capacity. The more users use Segwit the more capacity the network 'will get'. This will reach a top somewhere around ~180% (or 1.8 MB of TX data).

[franky1]

lol lauda great stuff

It is indeed. However, "higher" throughput would also be anything > ~3 (which we currently have). I'd consider high throughput somewhere above what Visa does on average (which is 2000 TPS according to some sources).

for months you been saying transactions are mostly 226bytes which would equate to the 7tps(false assumption but you really loved bragging that 226 magic number alot). atleast now your admitting its more like 400-500 to be at about 3tps, finally some honesty without over selling.

however a 2mb as of 2015 would have headed off the bottlenecks(a few have occurred this year) and kept prices low due to lack of bottlenecks forcing prices up.. while offering 2x capacity potential
but instead we were left with code release delays, which have caused a tx bottleneck many times this year. and what is the future.. a max of 1.8x capacity potential and also, even funnier.. a fee discount to make spamming even cheaper.... now thats just funny..

oh nearly forgot
if you think nefarious spammers will use LN. you would be wrong. their intent it to spam the network not their local machines
and if you think that every genuine user will use LN to not need to worry about spam. you would be wrong in that respect too.
LN isnt useful to everyone, you would be surprised at how little the scenario's for usefulness LN have..(when thinking about real people as oppose to glossy leaflets of exaggeration)

wait. i can already sense you rebuttle. eg not needing to worry about settling because channels dont need to close that often.
well my reply would be to quote your anger that visa takes 1-3 days to fully settle.. because its the same thing. but with LN you think it should be 1month-never.. yep im laughing at that hypocrisy..

now although LN increases "authorizations"/"payments" to large numbers IF people are individually sending funds to the same destination multiples times. but the settling would make it worse then visa.(using your mindset)

REMEMBER: LN helps aggregate "regular spenders" to a lower number. its not really a solution for increased userbase of non regular spenders.

think outside the glossy leaflets you have been handed and look at the some real use case scenarios.

[countryfree]

when the average will be so high that you need to pay always higher fee, to get in the priority list, it would kill the whole "bitcoin is cheaper than fiat" thing

I'm very much afraid of this. Not that I would mind paying some higher fees, I'm more worried about the share of BTC economy made of small transactions. I don't want, nobody wants BTC to evolve into a rich guys club only exchanging large sums and who don't mind paying substantial fees.

Lightning Network is being designed to handle all of these small transactions, instantly, and with very small fees paid to LN Hub operators. Bitcoin is about the status quo, it doesn't really matter what you want, the status quo simply is, and that means small value transactions are priced out first as they can't fit.

If you are just too impatient to wait for LN and the soft forks to Bitcoin it requires... may I suggest Litecoin? or Dogecoin? perhaps Monero?

I don't support micro-transactions. I think I've never done a single transaction which was worth less than $10. But there's a risk because of competition. What if some altcoin could perform faster and cheaper transactions than BTC? This is a market economy. BTC rules as of today, but many people, including myself, are looking at altcoins. Core developers should always have in mind that if BTC has a hiccup, there will be many altcoins ready, and willing to beat it.

[franky1]

I don't support micro-transactions. I think I've never done a single transaction which was worth less than $10. But there's a risk because of competition. What if some altcoin could perform faster and cheaper transactions than BTC? This is a market economy. BTC rules as of today, but many people, including myself, are looking at altcoins. Core developers should always have in mind that if BTC has a hiccup, there will be many altcoins ready, and willing to beat it.

though true micro transactions are not a thing to think about for every day users (only for lets say google/advertisers). we do atleast have to think about bitcoin in regards to average users.
for instance lets treat the fee as a percentage..what is the minimum fee people are happy to pay..lets say its 1%.
if the fee when the blocks capacity bottlenecks increases, to lets say 20cents(happened many times already) then people would not want to buy items costing less than $20 because then the fee's would be more than1% and just like using visa/paypal

so now we are starting to cut off a certain demograph.. no longer is it just the $2 coffee concept no longer wanted in 2015, but now its the ram, memorysticks, iphone cases blueray movies industry that people dont want to be transacting on chain..

at a 40cents fee(also happened a few times already) we will be cutting off purchases below $40 due to regular users opinion that 1% fee is alot

some thoughts from the past based on bitcoiners centiment about microtransactions
micro transactions in 2009-2013 were deemed as under 1cent..
micro transactions in 2013-2016 were deemed as under $2..
micro transactions in 2016-20xx whats the next threshold to deem as not being worthy

[tertius993]

But is that the point at which Segwit will start to deliver increased capacity?  From my reading (which may have misled me) I had understood that users actually had to send and receive Segwit transactions in order for it to provide that increase in capacity?  I was really wondering what was the (your) expectation for when we would be at that point?

That is correct. As soon as some people use the updated client and interact with each other, we will see increased capacity. The more users use Segwit the more capacity the network 'will get'. This will reach a top somewhere around ~180% (or 1.8 MB of TX data).

And so back to my original question - when is it expected that we will reach that "top" point?

[Lauda]

I think I've never done a single transaction which was worth less than $10. But there's a risk because of competition. What if some altcoin could perform faster and cheaper transactions than BTC? This is a market economy. BTC rules as of today, but many people, including myself, are looking at altcoins. Core developers should always have in mind that if BTC has a hiccup, there will be many altcoins ready, and willing to beat it.

If those altcoins had any desirable technology that is worth implementing into Bitcoin, it would be implemented. Nobody in their right mind cares about them besides traders who want to profit (excluding a few niche coins, e.g. for anonymity and such).

And so back to my original question - when is it expected that we will reach that "top" point?

Nobody can answer that question. They'd just be making guesses. As such, I can't answer this either.

[tertius993]

And so back to my original question - when is it expected that we will reach that "top" point?

Nobody can answer that question. They'd just be making guesses. As such, I can't answer this either.

And so offering up SegWit as a solution that will increase transaction capacity 1.8 fold is a little misleading don't you think? It may increase capacity by some (largely unknown but certainly less than 1.8x) amount at some (largely unknown) point in the future if it gets implemented and used.