1mb is too big

[illyiller]

I don't like topics about block size. It's smarter to talk about free space within each block. On an average computer, most people would say you need to keep at least 15% free space on your hard disk so that you work on files without hiccup. It's the same thing with BTC. If we're close to max capacity, things will be less smooth. It may even stall at some point and we don't want to see that.

If we perpetually increase capacity ahead of demand, fees will never rise. Transactions will always be free or nearly free for users. This will not end well in a future where block subsidy ends and fees alone must support the security of the network (by incentivizing miners). If we did this, we are basically depending on mass adoption and skyrocketing price being guaranteed. That's probably not a good engineering decision.

[takingthis4]

What is this about? Is this a reference to the Blockchain?

you are right, though im sure that 1 mb is not too big at all and i think that the size of a block should be bigger

[MONKEYJUNK]

What's your suggestion? a hard fork? lol
             
Let the fees raise! miners will love it

[yayayo]

I don't like topics about block size. It's smarter to talk about free space within each block. On an average computer, most people would say you need to keep at least 15% free space on your hard disk so that you work on files without hiccup. It's the same thing with BTC. If we're close to max capacity, things will be less smooth. It may even stall at some point and we don't want to see that.

If we perpetually increase capacity ahead of demand, fees will never rise. Transactions will always be free or nearly free for users. This will not end well in a future where block subsidy ends and fees alone must support the security of the network (by incentivizing miners). If we did this, we are basically depending on mass adoption and skyrocketing price being guaranteed. That's probably not a good engineering decision.

Exactly. People need to become aware that by transmitting a transaction they make use of resource - the Bitcoin network secured by miners. Such a resource can't be provided for free, because the miners are doing work for it. Since Bitcoin's maximum supply is fixed (for good reason), miners can't be eternally paid from block discovery rewards. Fee will play an increasingly important role as mining rewards in future.

Some fee pressure is also needed to prevent transaction spam which could easily render Bitcoin unusable, if no block limits are given and the network is flooded with micro-transactions. Ironically several such spam attacks were carried out by the big-block fanatics to proof that blocks were "full". In fact these attacks only showed that fees weren't high enough...
The reckless Gavinista bigblock-advocates even went as far as painting shiny charts that predicted a breakdown of the Bitcoin network around the end of last year. Nothing happend. You can always transact smoothly on the network, if you are willing to pay the appropriate fees.

Bitcoin capacity increases will come with segwit and small increases in block size to preserve decentralization. That's the responsible way to do it. There's no urgency to rush a toxic solution that endangers the original source of Bitcoin's value.

ya.ya.yo!

[leowonderful]

What's your suggestion? a hard fork? lol
            
Let the fees raise! miners will love it

As said before by a few other members, once the 2100s arrive, and blocks no longer produce bitcoins(at least through the creation of blocks that aren't related to transaction fees), because of Bitcoin's many denominations(i.e in the future, even 0.0001 btc could be worth something substantial), fees would need to sustain the coin enough to carry it through further. Of course a fork could help once we get to that point and lower blocksize and force fees onto miners, but keeping a small blocksize helps eliminate the sudden change. Transaction fees have been rising constantly throughout the last few years, and I've seen almost no people complain about it except for a few. Things change, and people need to realise that.

Of course blocksize will increase just a tad in the future to accommodate ever increasing volume, but it won't happen with a huge spike from 1mb to 2mb.

[LoyceV]

I don't like topics about block size. It's smarter to talk about free space within each block. On an average computer, most people would say you need to keep at least 15% free space on your hard disk so that you work on files without hiccup. It's the same thing with BTC. If we're close to max capacity, things will be less smooth. It may even stall at some point and we don't want to see that.

In most blocks, less than 0.2% free space is left. I completely agree, and I've been saying it for a while: this limits Bitcoin growth. It also limits how many people can use Bitcoin, as any new user takes away a transaction that an existing user can no longer make. Lightning Networks may work in the future, but we need a solution now. And with "now" I mean about a year ago.

And people worrying about bitcoin getting more centralized if we get bigger blocks are not considering the fact that we have been sitting on 1MB for years now, and since that time internet has gotten cheaper and disk space has gotten cheaper as well. So we can easily increase the block size and we can do so again when we need to (and by that time, internet and disk space have become cheaper again).

Miners spend millions on hashrates, and barely anything on disk space. By changing that ratio a small fraction, all miners can afford enough disk space for much bigger blocks.
The problem is that miners now only have a financial short term incentive to increase their hash rates, while they have no direct gain from larger blocks.

If we perpetually increase capacity ahead of demand, fees will never rise. Transactions will always be free or nearly free for users. This will not end well in a future where block subsidy ends and fees alone must support the security of the network (by incentivizing miners). If we did this, we are basically depending on mass adoption and skyrocketing price being guaranteed. That's probably not a good engineering decision.

The demand is there already.
By not increasing capacity, mass adoption becomes impossible. It's already not possible for just 1 million people to make a few transactions per day, let alone much more people.

[bryant.coleman]

If we perpetually increase capacity ahead of demand, fees will never rise. Transactions will always be free or nearly free for users. This will not end well in a future where block subsidy ends and fees alone must support the security of the network (by incentivizing miners). If we did this, we are basically depending on mass adoption and skyrocketing price being guaranteed. That's probably not a good engineering decision.

Right now, transaction fee represents less than 2% of the miner's income. The remainder comes from the block reward. This percentage is going to increase in the future, but no by much. By 2030 or 2035, the tx fee may cross the 10% mark. If we increase the tx fee, that will do more harm than good. The usage will go down, and there will not be any significant increase in the miner's revenue.

[Altcoinmoney]

Lol 1 mb is to big are you raelly sure about this do you know how much 1 mb is just 1000 kb and that is nothing for now in the past it was allot but now it is nothing.

[illyiller]

If we perpetually increase capacity ahead of demand, fees will never rise. Transactions will always be free or nearly free for users. This will not end well in a future where block subsidy ends and fees alone must support the security of the network (by incentivizing miners). If we did this, we are basically depending on mass adoption and skyrocketing price being guaranteed. That's probably not a good engineering decision.

The demand is there already.
By not increasing capacity, mass adoption becomes impossible. It's already not possible for just 1 million people to make a few transactions per day, let alone much more people.

I don't think you understand what I said. The demand should outweigh capacity if fees are to rise. And fees must rise significantly if the chain is to remain secure many years from now. And regarding capacity....firstly, Segwit, Schnorr and other optimizations + LN will drastically increase capacity. Secondly, it's not clear that fees are discouraging adoption at all---data, please? For those that view BTC as digital gold, 10 or 20 cent fees are not discouraging at all.

If we perpetually increase capacity ahead of demand, fees will never rise. Transactions will always be free or nearly free for users. This will not end well in a future where block subsidy ends and fees alone must support the security of the network (by incentivizing miners). If we did this, we are basically depending on mass adoption and skyrocketing price being guaranteed. That's probably not a good engineering decision.

Right now, transaction fee represents less than 2% of the miner's income. The remainder comes from the block reward. This percentage is going to increase in the future, but no by much. By 2030 or 2035, the tx fee may cross the 10% mark. If we increase the tx fee, that will do more harm than good. The usage will go down, and there will not be any significant increase in the miner's revenue.

The remainder comes from the block subsidy, which in a few years will be 6.5 BTC per block, and a few years after that, 3.125 BTC per block. Why would you assume that transactions won't make up for the loss in subsidy? Why, that was the whole premise of the system---that fees would eventually replace subsidy. Bitcoin has a finite supply. You say fees will never amount to subsidy; well, rationally, that suggests that in the future, the Bitcoin network will be significantly less secure than now. Perhaps we will see such drops in hash rates that mining tech from previous generations could be used to attack the network and cause block reorgs.

[bryant.coleman]

If we perpetually increase capacity ahead of demand, fees will never rise. Transactions will always be free or nearly free for users. This will not end well in a future where block subsidy ends and fees alone must support the security of the network (by incentivizing miners). If we did this, we are basically depending on mass adoption and skyrocketing price being guaranteed. That's probably not a good engineering decision.

Right now, transaction fee represents less than 2% of the miner's income. The remainder comes from the block reward. This percentage is going to increase in the future, but no by much. By 2030 or 2035, the tx fee may cross the 10% mark. If we increase the tx fee, that will do more harm than good. The usage will go down, and there will not be any significant increase in the miner's revenue.

The remainder comes from the block subsidy, which in a few years will be 6.5 BTC per block, and a few years after that, 3.125 BTC per block. Why would you assume that transactions won't make up for the loss in subsidy? Why, that was the whole premise of the system---that fees would eventually replace subsidy. Bitcoin has a finite supply. You say fees will never amount to subsidy; well, rationally, that suggests that in the future, the Bitcoin network will be significantly less secure than now. Perhaps we will see such drops in hash rates that mining tech from previous generations could be used to attack the network and cause block reorgs.

Eventually the transaction fees would replace subsidy... But that is going to take a long long time.... May be another 50 or 60 years... Are you sure that Bitcoin will survive for that long? Even if we assume that BTC is going to survive that long, the high transaction fee would mean that very few people could afford to transmit BTC.

Right now the average tx fee is around BTC0.0002, and I don't think that people would be really happy if they are forced to pay 100x of that (imagine paying BTC0.02 in tx fee).

[LoyceV]

I don't think you understand what I said. The demand should outweigh capacity if fees are to rise. And fees must rise significantly if the chain is to remain secure many years from now. And regarding capacity....firstly, Segwit, Schnorr and other optimizations + LN will drastically increase capacity. Secondly, it's not clear that fees are discouraging adoption at all---data, please? For those that view BTC as digital gold, 10 or 20 cent fees are not discouraging at all.

Miners earn about $7000 every 10 minutes now. A few months ago it was $12000. It was never a given that mining should earn this much. I know that eventually all revenue has to come from transaction fees, but to do that now would mean either having 25 times higher fees, or 25 times more transactions (and more users) at the same fees. Or a 25 times higher value, or somewhere in the middle a bit of everything.
Bitcoin was also secure when miners were earning much less dollars per block.

For as far as fees discouraging adoption: I don't have data from that. But it's easy to see that blocks are full, and full blocks simply mean it's not possible to do more transactions.

[Prettygirl01315]

Ha ha.  I dont think so because you cannot save sound files, video files and application files. I think this is the common needed in computer. But in just 1mb you can text files, webpage files, folder, document files. He he. And also without 1mb 1gb will not exist, 1tb will not exist also. Take this to your note.

[Carlton Banks]

Another possibility is to change the Bitcoin main chain from a linear chain to a dicyclic/dynamic tree type of thing, where instead of only one block being used as the subject for the proof of work at any one moment in time, an algorithmically tuned amount of POW subjects can be worked on simultaneously, targeting some kind of mining variability sweet spot. Not sure quite how disruptive that change would be though, lol

[illyiller]

Right now the average tx fee is around BTC0.0002, and I don't think that people would be really happy if they are forced to pay 100x of that (imagine paying BTC0.02 in tx fee).

There was a time years ago when 0.01 was the norm.

It's all relative. The key is that the block reward incentive mechanism needs to be robust without external guarantees like mass adoption and a million dollar bitcoin. We can't rely on those assumptions. More to the point, many people don't view Bitcoin primarily as a payment mechanism, but rather digital gold. In that context, fees are much less important.

It was never a given that mining should earn this much.

That's not the point. We need to account for rationality. A miner isn't going to lose money mining a chain simply because it was profitable in the past. He will shut down.

[zimmah]

Right now the average tx fee is around BTC0.0002, and I don't think that people would be really happy if they are forced to pay 100x of that (imagine paying BTC0.02 in tx fee).

There was a time years ago when 0.01 was the norm.

It's all relative. The key is that the block reward incentive mechanism needs to be robust without external guarantees like mass adoption and a million dollar bitcoin. We can't rely on those assumptions. More to the point, many people don't view Bitcoin primarily as a payment mechanism, but rather digital gold. In that context, fees are much less important.

It was never a given that mining should earn this much.

That's not the point. We need to account for rationality. A miner isn't going to lose money mining a chain simply because it was profitable in the past. He will shut down.

I won't be worth anything if it's not used for payment settlement.

It can not be just digital gold. It derives the value from being a payment settlement, so if people just only hold on to their coins, there is no value at all.

That's also why we can't keep the 1MB blocksize.

[illyiller]

Right now the average tx fee is around BTC0.0002, and I don't think that people would be really happy if they are forced to pay 100x of that (imagine paying BTC0.02 in tx fee).

There was a time years ago when 0.01 was the norm.

It's all relative. The key is that the block reward incentive mechanism needs to be robust without external guarantees like mass adoption and a million dollar bitcoin. We can't rely on those assumptions. More to the point, many people don't view Bitcoin primarily as a payment mechanism, but rather digital gold. In that context, fees are much less important.

It was never a given that mining should earn this much.

That's not the point. We need to account for rationality. A miner isn't going to lose money mining a chain simply because it was profitable in the past. He will shut down.

I won't be worth anything if it's not used for payment settlement.

It can not be just digital gold. It derives the value from being a payment settlement, so if people just only hold on to their coins, there is no value at all.

That's also why we can't keep the 1MB blocksize.

No one said it won't be used for settlement. But the value provided by the finite supply combined with the network's security should be considered in relation to transaction fees. Even at $1 or $20 fees, that value could be entirely worth it. Personally, I don't think Bitcoin is very useful for commerce (it could be with Layer 2 applications). It's useful for P2P value storage and transfer. Leaving the context of $3 cups of coffee and entering the context of people storing their net worth in Bitcoin is where this is relevant.

[zimmah]

Right now the average tx fee is around BTC0.0002, and I don't think that people would be really happy if they are forced to pay 100x of that (imagine paying BTC0.02 in tx fee).

There was a time years ago when 0.01 was the norm.

It's all relative. The key is that the block reward incentive mechanism needs to be robust without external guarantees like mass adoption and a million dollar bitcoin. We can't rely on those assumptions. More to the point, many people don't view Bitcoin primarily as a payment mechanism, but rather digital gold. In that context, fees are much less important.

It was never a given that mining should earn this much.

That's not the point. We need to account for rationality. A miner isn't going to lose money mining a chain simply because it was profitable in the past. He will shut down.

I won't be worth anything if it's not used for payment settlement.

It can not be just digital gold. It derives the value from being a payment settlement, so if people just only hold on to their coins, there is no value at all.

That's also why we can't keep the 1MB blocksize.

No one said it won't be used for settlement. But the value provided by the finite supply combined with the network's security should be considered in relation to transaction fees. Even at $1 or $20 fees, that value could be entirely worth it. Personally, I don't think Bitcoin is very useful for commerce (it could be with Layer 2 applications). It's useful for P2P value storage and transfer. Leaving the context of $3 cups of coffee and entering the context of people storing their net worth in Bitcoin is where this is relevant.

Bitcoin is arguably the best and only viable payment solution for online transactions.   

Credit/debit cards aren't safe to use on the internet, as fraud is common, and leaving all your credit card info online to pay online is just too risky. Credit/debit cards just weren't designed with the internet in mind.     

Cash obviously won't work on the internet at all.     

There's paypal and such, but then there's the problem with how do you pay paypal?     

But even if bitcoin would only be used as an internet currency, that's still a huge market. And bitcoin is already becoming a big player in remittance.

[illyiller]

No one said it won't be used for settlement. But the value provided by the finite supply combined with the network's security should be considered in relation to transaction fees. Even at $1 or $20 fees, that value could be entirely worth it. Personally, I don't think Bitcoin is very useful for commerce (it could be with Layer 2 applications). It's useful for P2P value storage and transfer. Leaving the context of $3 cups of coffee and entering the context of people storing their net worth in Bitcoin is where this is relevant.

Bitcoin is arguably the best and only viable payment solution for online transactions.   

Credit/debit cards aren't safe to use on the internet, as fraud is common, and leaving all your credit card info online to pay online is just too risky. Credit/debit cards just weren't designed with the internet in mind.     

Cash obviously won't work on the internet at all.     

There's paypal and such, but then there's the problem with how do you pay paypal?     

But even if bitcoin would only be used as an internet currency, that's still a huge market. And bitcoin is already becoming a big player in remittance.

I use credit cards all the time online, and I get cash back for it, too. I'm covered for fraudulent charges (which have happened once in over 10 years using them). The optimal way to use Paypal is to use their credit line and pay them by electronic check. You could probably pay them by snail mail if you wanted.

Anyway, this is getting away from the topic, which is being taken for granted. The real situation is that blocks are not full; they've leveled off at ~75% full, even as SPV mining becomes less prevalent. According to https://bitcoinfees.21.co, 60 satoshis/byte is enough to get into the next block, which is ~ $0.07 based on median transaction size. Talk about hand-waving!



There could be any number of reasons why blocks aren't filling up (or why average block size spiked earlier in the year). There may have been ongoing DOS/spam attacks that have died down. Services (and people) have probably gotten smarter about batching payments and cutting out unnecessary spends (I have). One would think that rationally, miners would be picking up transactions with low (but non-zero) fees instead of mining non-full blocks... so it may be a matter of fee policy enforcement, as we do see a steady ~2000 unconfirmed transactions even after many 100-600kb blocks in a row.

[MONKEYJUNK]

What's your suggestion? a hard fork? lol
            
Let the fees raise! miners will love it

As said before by a few other members, once the 2100s arrive, and blocks no longer produce bitcoins(at least through the creation of blocks that aren't related to transaction fees), because of Bitcoin's many denominations(i.e in the future, even 0.0001 btc could be worth something substantial), fees would need to sustain the coin enough to carry it through further. Of course a fork could help once we get to that point and lower blocksize and force fees onto miners, but keeping a small blocksize helps eliminate the sudden change. Transaction fees have been rising constantly throughout the last few years, and I've seen almost no people complain about it except for a few. Things change, and people need to realise that.

Of course blocksize will increase just a tad in the future to accommodate ever increasing volume, but it won't happen with a huge spike from 1mb to 2mb.

Yes, and that's why I think the bitcoin price will stay on ~600 for a long time... With lucky it can double in the next halving, it's time for a altcoins now(talking about speculation)

Well, I hope in 2100 I'll be dead already  can you imagine the miners in 2100? super computers and stuffs like that?  Hope bitcoin survives

[countryfree]

If we perpetually increase capacity ahead of demand, fees will never rise. Transactions will always be free or nearly free for users. This will not end well in a future where block subsidy ends and fees alone must support the security of the network (by incentivizing miners). If we did this, we are basically depending on mass adoption and skyrocketing price being guaranteed. That's probably not a good engineering decision.

The demand is there already.
By not increasing capacity, mass adoption becomes impossible. It's already not possible for just 1 million people to make a few transactions per day, let alone much more people.

I don't think you understand what I said. The demand should outweigh capacity if fees are to rise. And fees must rise significantly if the chain is to remain secure many years from now. And regarding capacity....firstly, Segwit, Schnorr and other optimizations + LN will drastically increase capacity. Secondly, it's not clear that fees are discouraging adoption at all---data, please? For those that view BTC as digital gold, 10 or 20 cent fees are not discouraging at all.

Even though I understand, and quite agree to a rise in transaction fees, I don't like the idea that demand should outweigh capacity. Do we want BTC to be a rich guy's club or to become the world's leading cryptocurrency, and to change the world?

Look at Ferrari. They artificially limit their production. They could sell more but they don't to protect the value of their brand, and the exclusivity of their products. I guess it suits them well, but you must look at Ford or Toyota to see who is changing the world.