Block Size Debate, finally an ideal solution: Bitcoin Unlimited

[Hyena]

I have been in the Bitcoin business since 2011. I have obviously followed the block size debate and even tried to propose solutions myself.

Today I was watching this video (Waves Weekly Crypto Roundup. Golem Project E06). In the very end it mentions that now a mining pool with 7% of hashing power supports Bitcoin Unlimited and thus Segwit will never get 95% of consensus. At first I thought it was really bad news for Bitcoin but then I started to investigate what the hell is Bitcoin Unlimited. Turns out that Bitcoin Unlimited is the ultimate free market solution to the block size debate. We already have child-pays-for-parent system implemented in Bitcoin. Now, removing the maximum block size limit is the next logical step. I am surprised that I didn't think of it myself a year ago. This is simply ingenious.

A miner will not all of sudden start to produce 1 GiB blocks because it will be orphaned for sure. Free market is the natural protection against any attempts to abuse the absence of block size limit. The block size limit doesn't belong to the protocol layer as a strict number. Instead, it should be determined by the free market. Bitcoin Unlimited is the way to go. It's fully compatible with the philosophy of Satoshi Nakamoto. I support it because I support the free market.

So, if Bitcoin Unlimited is so great, then why isn't everyone talking about it? I guess it's because several big boys have invested a lot of money into Segwit and other alternatives. Also, big miners with shitty internet speed do not like the idea of a theoretically unlimited block size. You know how this kind of situation is also called? Self-interest and corruption at the expense of the greater good. From this day I finally have a strong opinion on the block size debate and this is great. All I needed is to see that the removal of block size limit is a step in favour of the free market and that free market itself will eliminate all the problems that might rise from this. However, if you know that there is an option even better than Bitcoin Unlimited then please let me know in this thread as my decision about supporting Bitcoin Unlimited is not final.

[Dank14]

Your explanation about bitcoin unlimited is not comprehensive enough. Could you shed more light on what it is all about in simple English i.e no technical terms... thanks.

[pereira4]

If only it was that easy as "going unlimited", then we would be doing it already. But as everything not only in software engineering but in life, there are drawbacks and compromises you take when going a certain direction. Bitcoin unlimited has been already refuted as an optimal way to scale, just search for the posts containing "unlimited" on this forum by gmaxwell or "nullc" in reddit, its a good way to learn.

[Hyena]

Your explanation about bitcoin unlimited is not comprehensive enough. Could you shed more light on what it is all about in simple English i.e no technical terms... thanks.

That's a good question. I am also just new to the idea of Bitcoin Unlimited and thus I will probably not have all the answers. For example, Bitcoin Unlimited may or may not include features that I would never support. For that reason I am a bit suspicious about it. Why have all this software and why call it Bitcoin Unlimited if the only thing it's supposed to do is to completely remove the block size limit? They say that Bitcoin Unlimited allows you to track the competing forks. So simply put: it just has several bells and whistles in addition to the removal of maximum block size limit constant.

But if we throw out the unnecessary bells and whistles then the solution to the block size debate is simply to remove the block size limit. The miners will have their owns limits anyway. Those limits are going to be derived from the internet connection speed. The miner faces a trade off of losing the block reward if their block gets orphaned due to being too big in size. The free market solves everything. And it will be much more decentralized.

[Hyena]

If only it was that easy as "going unlimited", then we would be doing it already. But as everything not only in software engineering but in life, there are drawbacks and compromises you take when going a certain direction. Bitcoin unlimited has been already refuted as an optimal way to scale, just search for the posts containing "unlimited" on this forum by gmaxwell or "nullc" in reddit, its a good way to learn.

So I did search as you suggested. With no success. This is not a good contribution to this thread. I am overwhelmed by irrelevant search results.

In some post gmaxwell says this:

I believe a good proxy for this is the total number of coins transferred in the tx.

Probably not, due to all the non-bitcoin overlay things people are interested in. (E.g. the altcoins, colored coins, etc).

I disagree with the claim that its unrelated. Scarcity of block space is what enables a market for it; absent complete miner collusion, with unlimited block sizes there is a defection problem (the rational move for the miner is to take very low fee paying transactions instead of turning their nose up at them in order to drive the market price for fees above zero).

This does not make him sound very competent as he is referring to his personal fantasy of what would happen with unlimited block sizes. Miners want to maximize their profits. Nothing else needs to be said. The free market will solve all the problems. When the demand for bigger blocks gets real high then miners will start to confirm bigger blocks as the TX fees will eventually grow big enough to justify the risk of mining a block that gets orphaned. Also, miners are motivated to confirm TXs and not just mine empty blocks because this gives bitcoins their value. Only a mining pool willing to operate in a loss wishing to destroy the  Bitcoin network would not serve the best interests of the Bitcoin network.

Free market has always been the key to freedom and decentralization. It's really impossible to oppose this idea and support Bitcoin at the same time.

[Jet Cash]

Variable length blocks have been discussed a lot. It was one of the first questions I asked when I joined this forum.
What's to stop miners ignoring transactions, and just banging out transactionless blocks to get on the chain first.

I still believe that increasing block generation frequency, and bringing in SegWit and the other enhancements is the best way forward.

[Mokuton]

You gotta hardfork for this. Someone would make Bitcoin Classic lol

[Kprawn]

You know sometimes people are just swimming against the current, to show that they are different or to get some attention. The whole

Bitcoin Core vs Bitcoin Unlimited rivalry is only a power play between two groups of people who want to be on top. { Playing King of the Hill}

The only thing this has accomplished, was to divide the Bitcoin community and to strengthen the position of it's competitors. {This is what

they wanted from the start}

[franky1]

EPIC fail for the forum
moderators are either:
stupid by thinking bitcoin unlimited it an altcoin. when it has been running on bitcoins network and intends to use bitcoins consensus.. its only the mods that want unlimited to split off..

if not stupid they they are proving they want to destroy diversity by centralizing bitcoin to be in control of one team without a diverse free choice.

funny how this topic got moved to the alt section. id love to know which mod moved it.


in short.
to explain this topic

right now there are over 5000 nodes.
some nodes are set at anything below 1mb.
some nodes are set at anything below 2mb.
some are set at anything below 4mb
some are set at anything below 8mb.
some are set at  anything below 16mb
some are even set at anything below 32mb.

and they all work happily because mining pools realise that the only blocksize right now that is acceptable to all of those diverse nodes
is:
1mb right now.

yes that right. right now and for many months nodes have had their individual rules and pools have set their own arbitrary limits that fulfil the majority..
and yes they are all running on the bitcoin network. (so dont believe the bull crap about anything not core being an altcoin)

if the nodes refusing to go above 1mb dont change. then pools wont risk making blocks over 1mb..
if the nodes desiring below 1mb do change. then pools will happily make blocks over 1mb as long as the size of the blocks is acceptable to the majority..

bitcoin unlimited is just highlighting diversity and decentralization be continuing to keep that control within the diverse nodes.. rather then playing a script of oliver twist of asking one group of devs "please sir can i have some more" and waiting 2 years for a half-answer.

i feel ashamed of whoever the mod that moved this topic is, as that mod is an obvious person that wants centralized decisions made by people who should not be making decisions on behalf of a decentralized network.

[topesis]

I don't know when people will learn that increase in  size  is not always the solution to every problem, Let's give SW a chance here and see the output

[franky1]

I don't know when people will learn that increase in  size  is not always the solution to every problem, Let's give SW a chance here and see the output

funny thing is core wants 4mb weight. but that 3mb extra is not going to help quadruple capacity to 4x, but instead only 1.6-2x.. and then the other space is used by mundane data for different features like payment codes used for confidential transactions and other Id information for hopping to sidechains.

so if core think 4mb bloat is acceptable, strangely now it fits their "needs".. i have to ask what has changed on internet speeds and hard drive storage since last year that suddenly made their own doomsday scare stories disappear.

even things like linear scaling was never an issue. you just had to limit the amount of signatures allowed per transaction and then implement the new libsecp256k1 to make things more efficient.

as for malleability. this issue was about double spending.. which pretended to be solved. but suddenly RBF, CPFP and GOP are now new features being invented which can reintroduce new double spend methods for unconfirmed transactions.

but hey lets brush it under the carpet and instead push people offchain.. thus diluting the node count by people not using bitcoins onchain network 99.9% of the time to no longer care about bitcoins blockchain and only care about running an offchain or sidechain node they need to use daily.

[jbreher]

Welcome, Hyena - I've been running BU for months. Not too hard to find info: https://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/

BU is architected in the principle that most 'consensus' parameters should be set as an emergent property of the system, by each user making their own choices. Rather than by edict of a centralized dev team.

Practically, it is largely a fork of Core from some months ago, to which has been added:
- Articles of Federation naming the governance policy
- user-settable MAXBLOCKSIZE for acceptance
- user-selectable 'depth' before an even larger block becomes accepted (# of blocks mined atop the large block)
- Xtreme thin blocks, which reduces the network propagation delay of new blocks
- couple other enhancements

It runs happily on the main Bitcoin chain, alongside Core and others. Of course, once larger blocks become part of its blockchain, that chain will diverge from Core. There is a 75% threshold before it will start creating blocks larger than Core.

[Hyena]

I feel violated by the act of moderators moving this topic. It was never intended for altcoin discussion because Bitcoin Unlimited is not an altcoin. It is a solution to the block chain debate and the whole bitcoin community should be aware of it as an option. This is the first time I feel discriminated by the moderators of this forum as they clearly serve an egoistic agenda. Is there any place to discuss Bitcoin where free speech is not censored like that? I was going to support segWit because I thought that we could gradually introduce both to Bitcoin: unlimited blocks and segwit. Now that I see my ideas suppressed I am going to revolt against the core team and boycott the SegWit. I am going to start using Bitcoin Unlimited (which I didn't have in mind before mods moved my topic). I am also going to start BU propaganda from my free time and resources because that's what you get when you humiliate me by suppressing my opinion.

Since I don't agree with moderators and I would expect them to undo their action I am going to open a new topic for a new idea that just came to my mind: Solution to the Block Size Debate for Miners

[greenuser]

"Free market" is New world Order and has to fail.  The internet is a battlefield that is only just starting to spill blood. It will soon become full war. Not between nations but between the people and the ruling classes. It started with Brexit and is spreading into the US. The people will take back control but first we must crash fiat. It has started with the GB £ and the US $ will follow

Bitcoin must not go mainstream, It must stay the payment system for the Resistance to the New world Order.  A global insurrection against banker occupation has began. If we scale too quickly they will hijack our tech. I'm with segregated witness. Let's see the banking system fail first and then we will see if we get 95%

[franky1]

"Free market" is New world Order and has to fail.  The internet is a battlefield that is only just starting to spill blood. It will soon become full war. Not between nations but between the people and the ruling classes. It started with Brexit and is spreading into the US. The people will take back control but first we must crash fiat. It has started with the GB £ and the US $ will follow

Bitcoin must not go mainstream, It must stay the payment system for the Resistance to the New world Order.  A global insurrection against banker occupation has began. If we scale too quickly they will hijack our tech. I'm with segregated witness. Let's see the banking system fail first and then we will see if we get 95%

check out where Greg maxwells wages are coming from..
check out where matt corallos wages are coming from
check out where pieter wuilles wages are coming from
that $75mill investment so far into blockstream has come from the banking groups.

think about it, research it and realise who is controlling it.

[greenuser]

"Free market" is New world Order and has to fail.  The internet is a battlefield that is only just starting to spill blood. It will soon become full war. Not between nations but between the people and the ruling classes. It started with Brexit and is spreading into the US. The people will take back control but first we must crash fiat. It has started with the GB £ and the US $ will follow

Bitcoin must not go mainstream, It must stay the payment system for the Resistance to the New world Order.  A global insurrection against banker occupation has began. If we scale too quickly they will hijack our tech. I'm with segregated witness. Let's see the banking system fail first and then we will see if we get 95%

check out where Greg maxwells wages are coming from.. that $75mill investment so far into blockstream has come from the banking groups.
think about it, research it and realise who is controlling it.

All they care for is fiat. Fiat has to go

[franky1]

"Free market" is New world Order and has to fail.  The internet is a battlefield that is only just starting to spill blood. It will soon become full war. Not between nations but between the people and the ruling classes. It started with Brexit and is spreading into the US. The people will take back control but first we must crash fiat. It has started with the GB £ and the US $ will follow

Bitcoin must not go mainstream, It must stay the payment system for the Resistance to the New world Order.  A global insurrection against banker occupation has began. If we scale too quickly they will hijack our tech. I'm with segregated witness. Let's see the banking system fail first and then we will see if we get 95%

check out where Greg maxwells wages are coming from.. that $75mill investment so far into blockstream has come from the banking groups.
think about it, research it and realise who is controlling it.

All they care for is fiat. Fiat has to go

blockstream want to go offchain. guess who will be running the lightning hubs and sidechains..locking funds into dual signed addresses where the second signature is... guess who

[jbreher]

I feel violated by the act of moderators moving this topic.

Just another symptom of the thought-control that has led to you not learning of BU until now.

[Hyena]

"Free market" is New world Order and has to fail.  The internet is a battlefield that is only just starting to spill blood. It will soon become full war. Not between nations but between the people and the ruling classes. It started with Brexit and is spreading into the US. The people will take back control but first we must crash fiat. It has started with the GB £ and the US $ will follow

Bitcoin must not go mainstream, It must stay the payment system for the Resistance to the New world Order.  A global insurrection against banker occupation has began. If we scale too quickly they will hijack our tech. I'm with segregated witness. Let's see the banking system fail first and then we will see if we get 95%

While I agree with most of what you said I cannot interpret free market as a symptom of the new world order. Quite the opposite. No idea how you came up with that. Sorry.

"Free market" is New world Order and has to fail.  The internet is a battlefield that is only just starting to spill blood. It will soon become full war. Not between nations but between the people and the ruling classes. It started with Brexit and is spreading into the US. The people will take back control but first we must crash fiat. It has started with the GB £ and the US $ will follow

Bitcoin must not go mainstream, It must stay the payment system for the Resistance to the New world Order.  A global insurrection against banker occupation has began. If we scale too quickly they will hijack our tech. I'm with segregated witness. Let's see the banking system fail first and then we will see if we get 95%

check out where Greg maxwells wages are coming from..
check out where matt corallos wages are coming from
check out where pieter wuilles wages are coming from
that $75mill investment so far into blockstream has come from the banking groups.

think about it, research it and realise who is controlling it.

Thanks for pointing that out. Follow the money. Good idea.

EDIT:
For anyone new to this thread, listen to this video. I just discovered it and it sure is relevant to this topic.

[ArticMine]

If it only were that simple. I have also been in the Bitcoin business since 2011. The fundamental failure of applying Monero type scaling models, where the miners are penalized a percentage of the blockreward if they mine bigger blocks, to Bitcoin is what happens when the block reward runs out. If the block reward runs out there is no penalty and no incentive for the miners to secure the coin. If one reads Peter R. Rizun's paper https://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/resources/feemarket.pdf, one will understand that the effective miner penalty for increasing the blocksize due to orphan blocks is proportional to the block reward.

The only reason miner penalties that are proportional to the block reward work in Monero is that Monero has a perpetual block reward (tail emission). Bitcoin does not.

There is a reason why there are many in Bitcoin that are opposed to increasing the blocksize. They understand that without a a minimum perpetual block reward (tail emission), Bitcoin has to rely on fees to provide an incentive to the miners. This means one has to limit the blocksize in order to force the fees to go up.
 
Edit 1; Dogecoin unlimited may work but not Bitcoin unlimited.
Edit 2: I have listened to the video and yes I see how Blockstream when combined with a very small blocksize does become a tool for the existing banking system. This however does not change the reality that there is currently no viable solution for decentralized blocksize scaling without a tail emission. If someone has such a solution I would like to see it.