Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

I think an increase to 2MB is reasonable.

Can I ask why any sane person wants 8MB & even bigger blocks? It makes no sense at all, what do you possibly gain from that or is it because you think a hard fork will make the price crash so you can get a cheap entry point?

Are a large majority of the big block enthusiasts just chancers who haven't got many/any coins & secretly want uncertainty around a hard fork so they can load up on uber cheap coins?

Anybody want to answer honestly, no trolling?

Honestly? If we introduce 8MB(+) blocks in the form of BIP101 then the market will now that this issue will not have to be revisited in the not so distant future. The only "bad" thing that will happen is that Luke-Jr and Gmaxwell will throw a hissy fit.

But Fatty: I read that some sort of max block size is necessary to prevent miners from preventing people from running full nodes by creating too-large blocks. Is this true?!?! Would 8MB do that??

sauce

I don't see this "problem" as much of a problem. The most likely scenario is that the requirements on the nodes will increase due to the natural emergence of Bitcoin on the market. If this happens more people will depend on Bitcoin and be devoted to Bitcoin. Even with both the introduction of light clients and the price kicking our teeth in for the last three years, we still have 5648 nodes running. I think people confuse "real decentralization" with running a full node being some kind of a human right. It's not.

Ok. Thanks

[AlexGR]

To say "there is no immediate technical problem so we should wait" is a fallacy because the technical choice of doing nothing regarding the blocksize limit have ideological and economic implications.

But devs aren't waiting, they are coding solutions or half-measures / band-aids.

What is at stake today is the value of your bitcoins in 20 years, and if you don't want to allow that fucking blocksize limit to increase because of an ideological fallacy I have some bad news for you.

What we need is a tx/s capacity increase plus entering a more grown-up phase where the network stops processing spam and junk and stops acting as a third-party storage database for near zero or zero cost.

Practically all developers agree to it, whether it is in 3 months, 5 months, 1 year, it'll happen and we'll be ok.

Hard forking a currency into 2 currencies with the "orthodox" and the "catholics" each supporting their own part of the schism? No, that's the stuff with which nightmares are made of. Gavin, Hearn and all who sided with them are extremely dangerous to bitcoin, either because they lack the awareness of what they are trying to do, or because they are intentionally doing what they are trying to do and camouflaging it with the pretext of "saving" bitcoin in a situation where it doesn't need saving. At most a few fees will be bumped and some dust/spam will be crowded out if core devs are slow in their own rollout. That's all that will happen when blocks get full. It will not harm the "network effect" of normal users. But a fork will definitely destroy confidence in bitcoin forever because it sets the precedent where for each consequent "disagreement" we can have a new schism. Do you think that's good news for a 20-year horizon investment?

Just think it through. Is the precedent of a violent hard fork (and the knowledge that at any time the currency can split into two currencies / diluting the money supply / having people rage dumping on the "opponent" fork which they don't believe into etc etc) more beneficial than a few months delay in a more proper transaction capacity increase - when the issue isn't even pressing? Can the answer ever be yes to that?

[BldSwtTrs]

(There is an exchange in this forum, some years ago, where Greg says that the 1 MB limit is as sacred as the 21 M BTC limit, and he would not have put any time into bitcoin if Satoshi's design did not include it.  Gavin then points out that the 1 MB was not in the original design, and quotes Satoshi's Oct/2010 post where he explains that the limit could be lifted when needed by a simple 2-line patch and a routine hard-fork release.  I did not see Greg's answer.  Considering that he has never answered Mike's "crash landing" post either, I assume that he just shut that fact too out of his mind, since it did not fit his convictions...)

This one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.msg1492537#msg1492537

Bitcoin is valuable because of scarcity. One of the important scarcities is the limited supply of coins, another is the limited supply of block-space: Limited blockspace creates a market for transaction fees, the fees fund the mining needed to make the chain robust against hostile reorganization


Maxwell is totally clueless about the economics of Bitcoin. It's scary to read that from a guy so influential.

The blocksize limit and the 21 million BTC are two totally different economic beast. It takes a very high degree of cluessnessless to confuse the two.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Is SegWit really just an ugly hack to accommodate LN? Is this true? Because nobody knows if anybody will use LN yet...

[hdbuck]

(There is an exchange in this forum, some years ago, where Greg says that the 1 MB limit is as sacred as the 21 M BTC limit, and he would not have put any time into bitcoin if Satoshi's design did not include it.  Gavin then points out that the 1 MB was not in the original design, and quotes Satoshi's Oct/2010 post where he explains that the limit could be lifted when needed by a simple 2-line patch and a routine hard-fork release.  I did not see Greg's answer.  Considering that he has never answered Mike's "crash landing" post either, I assume that he just shut that fact too out of his mind, since it did not fit his convictions...)

This one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.msg1492537#msg1492537

Bitcoin is valuable because of scarcity. One of the important scarcities is the limited supply of coins, another is the limited supply of block-space: Limited blockspace creates a market for transaction fees, the fees fund the mining needed to make the chain robust against hostile reorganization


Maxwell is totally clueless about the economics of Bitcoin. It's scary to read that from a guy so influential.

The blocksize limit and the 21 million BTC are two totally different economic beast. It takes a very high degree of cluessnessless to confuse the two.

why is your pseudo frecnh blog not up anymore? your inputs are so valuable.. much clue, such bitcoin expert.

[BldSwtTrs]

(There is an exchange in this forum, some years ago, where Greg says that the 1 MB limit is as sacred as the 21 M BTC limit, and he would not have put any time into bitcoin if Satoshi's design did not include it.  Gavin then points out that the 1 MB was not in the original design, and quotes Satoshi's Oct/2010 post where he explains that the limit could be lifted when needed by a simple 2-line patch and a routine hard-fork release.  I did not see Greg's answer.  Considering that he has never answered Mike's "crash landing" post either, I assume that he just shut that fact too out of his mind, since it did not fit his convictions...)

This one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.msg1492537#msg1492537

Bitcoin is valuable because of scarcity. One of the important scarcities is the limited supply of coins, another is the limited supply of block-space: Limited blockspace creates a market for transaction fees, the fees fund the mining needed to make the chain robust against hostile reorganization


Maxwell is totally clueless about the economics of Bitcoin. It's scary to read that from a guy so influential.

The blocksize limit and the 21 million BTC are two totally different economic beast. It takes a very high degree of cluessnessless to confuse the two.

why is your pseudo frecnh blog not up anymore? your inputs are so valuable.. much clue, such bitcoin expert.

Why are you stupid?

So much questions, so few answers...

[AlexGR]

(There is an exchange in this forum, some years ago, where Greg says that the 1 MB limit is as sacred as the 21 M BTC limit, and he would not have put any time into bitcoin if Satoshi's design did not include it.  Gavin then points out that the 1 MB was not in the original design, and quotes Satoshi's Oct/2010 post where he explains that the limit could be lifted when needed by a simple 2-line patch and a routine hard-fork release.  I did not see Greg's answer.  Considering that he has never answered Mike's "crash landing" post either, I assume that he just shut that fact too out of his mind, since it did not fit his convictions...)

This one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.msg1492537#msg1492537

Bitcoin is valuable because of scarcity. One of the important scarcities is the limited supply of coins, another is the limited supply of block-space: Limited blockspace creates a market for transaction fees, the fees fund the mining needed to make the chain robust against hostile reorganization


Maxwell is totally clueless about the economics of Bitcoin. It's scary to read that from a guy so influential.

The blocksize limit and the 21 million BTC are two totally different economic beast. It takes a very high degree of cluessnessless to confuse the two.

He states the obvious.

If BTCs were endless why would anyone pay 400$ for them?

Likewise, if blockchain use was infinite in terms of transaction capacity & storage, why would anyone pay fees?

You don't pay for things that are provided in abundance.

If the system is designed in a "go-ahead-use-as-much-space-as-you-want-for-free" the lack of scarcity would lead to few incentives for those using the space to pay the fees.

Theoretically miners would prevent this thing. The game theory would say "but it is not in their interest to process spam, dust, zero-fee txs etc etc". In reality they do. They don't act like rational miners and the irrationality in the mining business where the miner subsidizes (!) blockchain abuse breaks the system of supply/demand in the case of larger and larger blocks.

[Fatman3001]

(There is an exchange in this forum, some years ago, where Greg says that the 1 MB limit is as sacred as the 21 M BTC limit, and he would not have put any time into bitcoin if Satoshi's design did not include it.  Gavin then points out that the 1 MB was not in the original design, and quotes Satoshi's Oct/2010 post where he explains that the limit could be lifted when needed by a simple 2-line patch and a routine hard-fork release.  I did not see Greg's answer.  Considering that he has never answered Mike's "crash landing" post either, I assume that he just shut that fact too out of his mind, since it did not fit his convictions...)

This one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.msg1492537#msg1492537

Bitcoin is valuable because of scarcity. One of the important scarcities is the limited supply of coins, another is the limited supply of block-space: Limited blockspace creates a market for transaction fees, the fees fund the mining needed to make the chain robust against hostile reorganization


Maxwell is totally clueless about the economics of Bitcoin. It's scary to read that from a guy so influential.

The blocksize limit and the 21 million BTC are two totally different economic beast. It takes a very high degree of cluessnessless to confuse the two.

why is your pseudo frecnh blog not up anymore? your inputs are so valuable.. much clue, such bitcoin expert.

Why are you stupid?

So much questions, so few answers...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt9q-WChfeM

he does

Edit: btw: we're going down soon

[BldSwtTrs]

(There is an exchange in this forum, some years ago, where Greg says that the 1 MB limit is as sacred as the 21 M BTC limit, and he would not have put any time into bitcoin if Satoshi's design did not include it.  Gavin then points out that the 1 MB was not in the original design, and quotes Satoshi's Oct/2010 post where he explains that the limit could be lifted when needed by a simple 2-line patch and a routine hard-fork release.  I did not see Greg's answer.  Considering that he has never answered Mike's "crash landing" post either, I assume that he just shut that fact too out of his mind, since it did not fit his convictions...)

This one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.msg1492537#msg1492537

Bitcoin is valuable because of scarcity. One of the important scarcities is the limited supply of coins, another is the limited supply of block-space: Limited blockspace creates a market for transaction fees, the fees fund the mining needed to make the chain robust against hostile reorganization


Maxwell is totally clueless about the economics of Bitcoin. It's scary to read that from a guy so influential.

The blocksize limit and the 21 million BTC are two totally different economic beast. It takes a very high degree of cluessnessless to confuse the two.

He states the obvious.

If BTCs were endless why would anyone pay 400$ for them?

Likewise, if blockchain use was infinite in terms of transaction capacity & storage, why would anyone pay fees?

You don't pay for things that are provided in abundance.

If the system is designed in a "go-ahead-use-as-much-space-as-you-want-for-free" the lack of scarcity would lead to few incentives for those using the space to pay the fees.

Theoretically miners would prevent this thing. The game theory would say "but it is not in their interest to process spam, dust, zero-fee txs etc etc". In reality they do. They don't act like rational miners and the irrationality in the mining business where the miner subsidizes (!) blockchain abuse breaks the system of supply/demand in the case of larger and larger blocks.

Haven't you read the paper of Peter R about the existence of a fee market without a blocksize limit?

Miners cannot make infinitively big blocks because of orphan risk. Real world constraints are enough to make appear a need for transaction fee.

If "artificial constraint"<"real world constraint" you are capping the value created by the BTC network because you are lowering the total amount of transactions that occurs on the network (because higher transaction price drive out the demand for transaction) and thus lowering the total amount of fees.

Thinking the economics of the 21mil are the same as the economics of the blocksize is very, very wrong.

[AlexGR]

Haven't you read the paper of Peter R about the existence of the fee market without a blocksize limit?

Miners cannot make infinitively big blocks because of orphan risk. Real world constraints are enough to make appear a need for transaction fee.

Ok, let's say you hit the "real world constraints", what then?

Someone will come along, proclaim the new version of fullblockalypse, say the end is near because blocks are at the technological limit and we now have to make people pay fees, etc etc... then they will say they have that fantastic solution of changing the X parameter in the network (like block times issued in 20 minutes instead of 10m to allow larger blocks to get propagated without getting orphaned, or the implementation of some other "hack", to "solve" the "problem") and if we don't do that NOW, it would be a frickin' disaster.

A new rift ensues etc etc and then we have yet another currency after BTC and BTCC.

This is bullshit. It never stops.

Plus, there is an issue I thought of the other day, triggered by a discussion I was reading. In a big block scenario and if most miners are in china from what I understand -and please someone correct my misunderstanding if I'm wrong-, the problem will be that they are communicating the big blocks through their national backbones in great speed while the rest of the world is orphaned all the time because they are lagging behind them and they don't have 51% hashpower to build longer chains than the chinese.

In this sense, the chinese could actually be ...incentivized to put out as large blocks as they want to disadvantage the rest of the world - even filling blocks with junk in a prearranged manner, where they act like a cartel to push others out and get all the BTCs for themselves. If it works, why not?

[BldSwtTrs]

Haven't you read the paper of Peter R about the existence of the fee market without a blocksize limit?

Miners cannot make infinitively big blocks because of orphan risk. Real world constraints are enough to make appear a need for transaction fee.

Ok, let's say you hit the "real world constraints", what then?

Someone will come along, proclaim the new version of fullblockalypse, say the end is near because blocks are at the technological limit and we now have to make people pay fees, etc etc... then they will say they have that fantastic solution of changing the X parameter in the network (like block times issued in 20 minutes instead of 10m to allow larger blocks to get propagated without getting orphaned, or the implementation of some other "hack", to "solve" the "problem") and if we don't do that NOW, it would be a frickin' disaster.

A new rift ensues etc etc and then we have yet another currency after BTC and BTCC.

This is bullshit. It never stops.

Without a blocksize limit fees will rise in relation to the interaction of the limit of the real world environment and the demand, and this is absolutely not a reason to impose a lower capacity on the system for starters.

We are not talking about tweaking the system so he can cope with an increase of usage, we are talking about relieving what prevent the system to fullfill its natural potential. What is non-natural is the blocksize limit.

To say "it's better that we hit a low limit soon rather than take the risk of hitting a very high limit in a lot of time" is nonsensical.

And to deal with the mess created by this artificial limit devs are talking about SegWit or Lightning... who exactly is planning to change A LOT of parameters of the network?

[Andre#]

The real question is why miners aren't mining these transactions to get to the limit. Why are they issuing empty blocks, why don't they even care to change the 750kb parameter to 1mb etc etc. The obvious answer is because the fee incentives are too low, so why should they?

The obvious answer is because the lionshare of their income still comes from the block subsidy. That subsidy has to drop first. Which will happen in due time. Only then empty blocks will not be mined anymore.

[Richy_T]

The real question is why miners aren't mining these transactions to get to the limit. Why are they issuing empty blocks, why don't they even care to change the 750kb parameter to 1mb etc etc. The obvious answer is because the fee incentives are too low, so why should they?

The obvious answer is because the lionshare of their income still comes from the block subsidy. That subsidy has to drop first. Which will happen in due time. Only then empty blocks will not be mined anymore.

The empty blocks is an entirely separate issue also. I believe there have been *some* empty blocks mined when transactions could have been included but the vast majority are mined because the miners are mining before they know which pending transactions are valid (and hence include none).

[rebuilder]

Without a blocksize limit fees will rise in relation to the interaction of the limit of the real world environment and the demand, and this is absolutely not a reason to impose a lower capacity on the system for starters.

This. The big issue isn't block size, it's that we're storing all the tx forever right now. That's the tree that we need to bark up, IMO. It's just inelegant right now. Hopefully a reasonable solution can be implemented or we'll see some kludge like automatic pruning of all tx created more than X blocks before... "Move your coins or lose 'em."

Actually, only storing, say, 5 years worth of data would certainly simplify things... Now there's a flamewar to start.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[mavericklm]

I would like to see 512k blocks!!!!
So we will see that block size is big enough!

[deadpoolx]

Fasten your belts fellows. Here we go, down again ...

[r0ach]

Likewise, if blockchain use was infinite in terms of transaction capacity & storage, why would anyone pay fees?

You do NOT need perma small blocks to make a fee market work because Bitcoin doesn't function properly without a forced minimum transaction fee in the first place.  Gmaxwell doesn't understand economics and is using the WRONG tool for the job.  He's attempting to use block size as both a spam inhibitor and fee market promoter, when it's minimum transaction fee that's designed for both of those purposes.  He's trying to alter the functionality of Bitcoin to be the opposite of how Satoshi created it:

"If we started getting DoS attacked with loads of wasted transactions back and forth, you would need to start paying a 0.01 minimum transaction fee.  0.1.5 actually had an option to set that, but I took it out to reduce confusion.  Free transactions are nice and we can keep it that way if people don't abuse them." - Satoshi

More on that subject here:

Minimum transaction fee is the anti-spam mechanism of Bitcoin, not block size

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1295293.0

[AlexGR]

Likewise, if blockchain use was infinite in terms of transaction capacity & storage, why would anyone pay fees?

You do NOT need perma small blocks

I don't think there are people which are actually on a "1mb forevah" camp. This, obviously, doesn't scale. So no permasmall.

because Bitcoin doesn't function properly without a forced minimum transaction fee in the first place.  Gmaxwell doesn't understand economics and is using the WRONG tool for the job.  He's attempting to use block size as both a spam inhibitor and fee market promoter, when it's minimum transaction fee that's designed for both of those purposes.  He's trying to alter the functionality of Bitcoin to be the opposite of how Satoshi created it:

"If we started getting DoS attacked with loads of wasted transactions back and forth, you would need to start paying a 0.01 minimum transaction fee.  0.1.5 actually had an option to set that, but I took it out to reduce confusion.  Free transactions are nice and we can keep it that way if people don't abuse them." - Satoshi

More on that subject here:

Minimum transaction fee is the anti-spam mechanism of Bitcoin, not block size

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1295293.0

In absence of serious antispamming fees, and in the presence of "willing-to-process-junk-for-free" miners, the block size is the ultimate safeguard for abuse.

Personally I have no problem with big blocks if minimum fees get higher and if the game theory, or code, or network, doesn't break somewhere else.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Fasten your belts fellows. Here we go, down again ...

Anybody surprised?