What we're doing with Bitcoin Unlimited, simply

[Peter R]

What we’re doing with Bitcoin Unlimited, simply

Formatted article available on Medium here.

Bitcoin has no center. It has no Board of Directors. It has no CEO, no President, no Chieftain, Sheik or Shah. Bitcoin is a decentralized network made up of voluntary participants — only loosely connected — who come together for their mutual benefit. There are users who transact in bitcoin to take advantage of its privacy and convenience, and investors who hold bitcoin hoping to profit from its price appreciation. There are node operators whose computers validate and relay the transactions made by Bitcoin users, and there are miners — a special type of node operator — whose mining farms append blocks of new transactions to the permanent blockchain ledger, rewarding themselves for this service with 12.5 newly-minted bitcoins.

The fact that Bitcoin has no center—that Bitcoin is decentralized — is the very essence of its nature. It is this lack of a center that helps to ensure the integrity of Bitcoin as money. If Bitcoin had a center, users would have to trust it not to reverse or censor payments for political reasons, or reward itself unfairly with newly-created bitcoins. If Bitcoin had a center, it would be much less useful as peer-to-peer electronic cash.

And there is no doubt: Bitcoin is useful as electronic cash. One measure of its usefulness is the price of a bitcoin, which has increased from $1.08 six years ago, to $993 today.

A second measure of Bitcoin’s usefulness is how often it is used. The total volume of transactions processed by the Bitcoin network has likewise climbed from 1 transaction per minute six years ago to an average just shy of 3 transactions per second today.

A third measure of Bitcoin’s usefulness is the number of people using it. Due to Bitcoin’s pseudonymous nature, user-base estimates are often disputed, today ranging anywhere from hundreds of thousand to tens of million. But one thing that is not disputed is that the growth of Bitcoin’s user base was a primary driver increasing both the total volume of transactions and the price of a bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s lack of a center comes with a cost too: there is no conductor waiving his baton, coordinating the network participants while they play from a curated score. Even changes that are widely perceived as positive are difficult to roll out, as doing so involves communication and cooperation between the loosely-connected participants who make up the Bitcoin network.

The most pertinent example of a need for change is the “1 MB block size limit.” In 2010, Satoshi Nakamoto added a protocol rule that limited the volume of transactions committed to the blockchain to roughly 3 per second (3 transactions per second typically fills blocks up to the 1 MB limit). When the limit was added, it was 800 times greater than the natural transaction volume, and so the limit did not constrain the natural growth of the system (it served only as an anti-spam measure). But today, the network is “maxed out,” regularly hitting this limit, and no longer free to grow how it did during the first 7 years of its history.


Fig. 1. Transaction volume on the Bitcoin network is now constrained by the 1 MB block size limit enforced by approximately 90% of network nodes. If the block size limit were raised, the transaction volume wouldn’t immediately fill it, but would rather continue to grow similar to how it grew before hitting the limit.

How might we increase this limit, if Bitcoin has no center that can do it for us? To answer this question, we must first understand who it is that is enforcing the block size limit.

So who is it? Why can’t Bitcoin users make more than the 3 transactions per second on average today? The reason is related to the fact that when a payment is sent between two users, it doesn’t actually go directly from User A to User B; instead it is relayed to, and approved by, every node on the network. There are approximately 6000 accessible nodes, or assuming bitcoin has 5 million users, about 1 node for every 800 users.

When a miner finds a new block of transactions to add to the blockchain, each node checks the size of that block. If the block is larger than 1 MB (i.e., if it contains more than approximately 3 transactions per second worth of data), 9 out of 10 nodes today would reject that block as being invalid. No miner would risk intentionally producing a block larger than 1 MB because he knows that the network as a whole would reject it and his 12.5 BTC reward would be lost. And so even though miners may want to process more transactions per second, they don’t because effectively they can’t — the other nodes won’t let them.

We see then that to increase the limit — to allow miners to process more than 3 transactions per second —it is the people operating these nodes who must take action. Node operators must convincingly communicate to the miners that they are ready and willing to accept larger blocks. This is especially true for economically-significant nodes such as those running Bitcoin exchanges, payment processors, and web wallets. What we’re trying to do with Bitcoin Unlimited is give node operators a flexible set of tools to allow them to do this.

Very simply:

    1. Bitcoin Unlimited allows a node operator to quickly and easily change his node’s block size limit.

    2. Bitcoin Unlimited allows a miner to quickly and easily change the maximum size of blocks his node will produce.

    3. Bitcoin Unlimited helps node operators and miners signal their block size preferences to the rest of the network.

Today, approximately 1 in every 10 network nodes is running Bitcoin Unlimited, with a median block size limit of 16 MB. As more and more node operators take similar initiatives and raise their node’s block size limits, miners become more and more tempted to produce larger blocks that contain more transactions. At some point — when miners are comfortable that a sizeable majority of the network is ready and willing to accept larger blocks — a miner will produce one, it will be accepted into the permanent blockchain ledger, and Bitcoin will be free to continue growing.

What we’re doing with Bitcoin Unlimited is that simple.

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[cellard]

The idea of how bitcoin development shouldn't be centralized is ok and all, everyone is free to start their own bitcoin fork, but the problem is when delusional people think bitcoin unlimited is better than core and hard forking is a good idea.


Core got the best coders, the most realistic roadmap, the most solid vision for the long term.
Bitcoin Unlimited is smoke and mirrors and couldn't survive without Core's work. Hard forking will result in an Ethereum/Ehtereum Classic disaster and seems like BU people don't see this fact.

If there was an actual team with an actual software that is better than Core I would be the first one to want to hard fork but that does not exist, also im sure if legit improvements were discovered there would not be problems to submit them in the bitcoin github.

[Peter R]

@cellard:

Indeed, Bitcoin Unlimited has fewer full-time developers than Core.  However, there is less work to do, as first-and-foremost Bitcoin Unlimited was intended as a patch-set on top of Core to permit node operators and miners to more easily adjust their node's block size limits and signal their preferences to the network. 

Should we get larger blocks, then clearly all of the good developers presently contributing to Core aren't going to simply disappear.  Some will patch Core to be compatible while others will move to BU, Btcd, etc.  So the idea that larger blocks would lead to fewer developers doesn't make much sense.  In fact, since larger blocks would permit Bitcoin to continue to grow how it did during it's first 7 years, larger blocks would likely result in more developers.  Hopefully we end up with both more developers and more implementations, helping to decentralize development. 

Regarding your comment about BU making improvements beyond the block-size limit patch set, BU was the first client to successfully implement thin blocks, significantly reducing the amount of time and the number of bytes required to communicate a block. 

[Idrisu]

I am interested in bitcoin because of its decentralized nature. The cryptography money that was developed by satoshi was one of the greatest thing that happened to this world from time immemorial except The death and resurrection of our lord Jesus Christ. Many elites are confused because of the decentralized nature of the currency, they cannot control both the mining and transfer of cryptocurrencies.

[Holliday]

On-chain scaling doesn't seem that popular among users. Seems odd, considering how many new threads are made about this topic every week. Granted, the same actors (vocal minority?) are the ones making all those threads.

[Lipe490]

What we’re doing with Bitcoin Unlimited, simply

Formatted article available on Medium here.

Bitcoin has no center. It has no Board of Directors. It has no CEO, no President, no Chieftain, Sheik or Shah. Bitcoin is a decentralized network made up of voluntary participants — only loosely connected — who come together for their mutual benefit. There are users who transact in bitcoin to take advantage of its privacy and convenience, and investors who hold bitcoin hoping to profit from its price appreciation. There are node operators whose computers validate and relay the transactions made by Bitcoin users, and there are miners — a special type of node operator — whose mining farms append blocks of new transactions to the permanent blockchain ledger, rewarding themselves for this service with 12.5 newly-minted bitcoins.

The fact that Bitcoin has no center—that Bitcoin is decentralized — is the very essence of its nature. It is this lack of a center that helps to ensure the integrity of Bitcoin as money. If Bitcoin had a center, users would have to trust it not to reverse or censor payments for political reasons, or reward itself unfairly with newly-created bitcoins. If Bitcoin had a center, it would be much less useful as peer-to-peer electronic cash.

And there is no doubt: Bitcoin is useful as electronic cash. One measure of its usefulness is the price of a bitcoin, which has increased from $1.08 six years ago, to $993 today.

A second measure of Bitcoin’s usefulness is how often it is used. The total volume of transactions processed by the Bitcoin network has likewise climbed from 1 transaction per minute six years ago to an average just shy of 3 transactions per second today.

A third measure of Bitcoin’s usefulness is the number of people using it. Due to Bitcoin’s pseudonymous nature, user-base estimates are often disputed, today ranging anywhere from hundreds of thousand to tens of million. But one thing that is not disputed is that the growth of Bitcoin’s user base was a primary driver increasing both the total volume of transactions and the price of a bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s lack of a center comes with a cost too: there is no conductor waiving his baton, coordinating the network participants while they play from a curated score. Even changes that are widely perceived as positive are difficult to roll out, as doing so involves communication and cooperation between the loosely-connected participants who make up the Bitcoin network.

The most pertinent example of a need for change is the “1 MB block size limit.” In 2010, Satoshi Nakamoto added a protocol rule that limited the volume of transactions committed to the blockchain to roughly 3 per second (3 transactions per second typically fills blocks up to the 1 MB limit). When the limit was added, it was 800 times greater than the natural transaction volume, and so the limit did not constrain the natural growth of the system (it served only as an anti-spam measure). But today, the network is “maxed out,” regularly hitting this limit, and no longer free to grow how it did during the first 7 years of its history.


Fig. 1. Transaction volume on the Bitcoin network is now constrained by the 1 MB block size limit enforced by approximately 90% of network nodes. If the block size limit were raised, the transaction volume wouldn’t immediately fill it, but would rather continue to grow similar to how it grew before hitting the limit.

How might we increase this limit, if Bitcoin has no center that can do it for us? To answer this question, we must first understand who it is that is enforcing the block size limit.

So who is it? Why can’t Bitcoin users make more than the 3 transactions per second on average today? The reason is related to the fact that when a payment is sent between two users, it doesn’t actually go directly from User A to User B; instead it is relayed to, and approved by, every node on the network. There are approximately 6000 accessible nodes, or assuming bitcoin has 5 million users, about 1 node for every 800 users.

When a miner finds a new block of transactions to add to the blockchain, each node checks the size of that block. If the block is larger than 1 MB (i.e., if it contains more than approximately 3 transactions per second worth of data), 9 out of 10 nodes today would reject that block as being invalid. No miner would risk intentionally producing a block larger than 1 MB because he knows that the network as a whole would reject it and his 12.5 BTC reward would be lost. And so even though miners may want to process more transactions per second, they don’t because effectively they can’t — the other nodes won’t let them.

We see then that to increase the limit — to allow miners to process more than 3 transactions per second —it is the people operating these nodes who must take action. Node operators must convincingly communicate to the miners that they are ready and willing to accept larger blocks. This is especially true for economically-significant nodes such as those running Bitcoin exchanges, payment processors, and web wallets. What we’re trying to do with Bitcoin Unlimited is give node operators a flexible set of tools to allow them to do this.

Very simply:

    1. Bitcoin Unlimited allows a node operator to quickly and easily change his node’s block size limit.

    2. Bitcoin Unlimited allows a miner to quickly and easily change the maximum size of blocks his node will produce.

    3. Bitcoin Unlimited helps node operators and miners signal their block size preferences to the rest of the network.

Today, approximately 1 in every 10 network nodes is running Bitcoin Unlimited, with a median block size limit of 16 MB. As more and more node operators take similar initiatives and raise their node’s block size limits, miners become more and more tempted to produce larger blocks that contain more transactions. At some point — when miners are comfortable that a sizeable majority of the network is ready and willing to accept larger blocks — a miner will produce one, it will be accepted into the permanent blockchain ledger, and Bitcoin will be free to continue growing.

What we’re doing with Bitcoin Unlimited is that simple.

The price should rise significantly next weeks.

[franky1]

The idea of how bitcoin development shouldn't be centralized is ok and all, everyone is free to start their own bitcoin fork, but the problem is when delusional people think bitcoin unlimited is better than core and hard forking is a good idea.


Core got the best coders, the most realistic roadmap, the most solid vision for the long term.
Bitcoin Unlimited is smoke and mirrors and couldn't survive without Core's work. Hard forking will result in an Ethereum/Ehtereum Classic disaster and seems like BU people don't see this fact.

If there was an actual team with an actual software that is better than Core I would be the first one to want to hard fork but that does not exist, also im sure if legit improvements were discovered there would not be problems to submit them in the bitcoin github.

cellard
atleast learn the difference between consensus and a split.

hard and soft just mean
soft: only pools vote
hard: nodes then pools

as for the types of 'fork'.. even soft can lead to a split. yep its part of bip 9.. bip 9 can cause a split too by biasedly AVOIDING native nodes making blocks, purely because they are native blocks.

ethereum was not consensus. ethereum was a bilateral split. learn and research it, please

softfork: consensus - >94% pools no banning/ignoring of minority. result: small 5% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced and dead
softfork: controversial - >50% pools no banning/ignoring of minority. result: long big% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced and dead
softfork: bilateral split - intentionally ignoring/banning opposing rules and not including them. result: 2 chains

hardfork: consensus - >94% nodes, then >94% pools no banning/ignoring of minority. result: 5% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced / dead
hardfork: controversial - >50% nodes, then >50% pools no banning/ignoring of minority. result: big% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced / dead
hardfork: bilateral split - intentionally ignoring/banning opposing rules and not including them. result: 2 chains

when reading hard fork or soft fork. do not automatically assume best case for soft, worst case for hard. as thats just propaganda.

and the smart community want CONSENSUS not bilateral

[pereira4]

@cellard:

Indeed, Bitcoin Unlimited has fewer full-time developers than Core.  However, there is less work to do, as first-and-foremost Bitcoin Unlimited was intended as a patch-set on top of Core to permit node operators and miners to more easily adjust their node's block size limits and signal their preferences to the network.  

Should we get larger blocks, then clearly all of the good developers presently contributing to Core aren't going to simply disappear.  Some will patch Core to be compatible while others will move to BU, Btcd, etc.  So the idea that larger blocks would lead to fewer developers doesn't make much sense.  In fact, since larger blocks would permit Bitcoin to continue to grow how it did during it's first 7 years, larger blocks would likely result in more developers.  Hopefully we end up with both more developers and more implementations, helping to decentralize development.  

Regarding your comment about BU making improvements beyond the block-size limit patch set, BU was the first client to successfully implement thin blocks, significantly reducing the amount of time and the number of bytes required to communicate a block.  

There will never be "massive onchain scaling" without massive node centralization. Why is it so hard to understand?

Also, such flexibility on the setup may seem like a nice thing at first, but upon deeper inspection, it opens a nasty can of worms and all sorts of attack vectors. Same blocksize for all is actually a strenght. We need a strong set of rules. Im sure someone like gmaxwell can give a deeper technical answer and also explain the game theory and possible attack vectors that such such flexibility to change the blocksize on such level would mean. (yeah, im sure franky1 the resident coding genius that never coded anything relevant hates gmaxwell and knows better so he will ignore anything he says)

Unfortunately, I don't see ANY possible way to scale onchain anywhere near what we would need to conquer the world as a viable payment transactor that can replace the existing centralized options.

Want to compete with VISA? then get it throught your skull: we need a second layer solution, there's no way out, unless a time traveller or an alien from outter space with super advanced technology comes up with the actual next bitcoin that will make us overnight billionaires by buying in the first day. Until then I hope you understand the mistake of not supporting Core devs and LN. So far they haven't fucked up bigly enough to risk a god damned hard fork. We don't want a Buterin event... that is what could kill the network effect forever (and im sure everyone that has an anti-bitcoin agenda is aware on this, hence why they push with BU so hard)

Ps: I've heard the Roger crew pushing for way less than 94% so the hardfork would be nasty. They know they would never get anywhere near 94% no matter how many millions they invest in their propaganda.

[franky1]

There will never be "massive onchain scaling" overnight without massive node centralization. but there can be natural consensus growth onchain scaling over months-decades.
where NODES decide what they can cope with and it scales with what NODES can cope with to avoid the fake doomsdays of centralisations

fixed that for you

[Peter R]

@pereira:

Most people I know working on Bitcoin Unlimited want to see second-layer solutions too.  The main difference is that they want on-chain and off-chain to compete freely; they don't want on-chain transaction throughput constrained in a "top down" way, and so we have offered the market Bitcoin Unlimited so that these constraints could be loosened from the "bottom up."  Time will tell if this is something that that market wants or not.

Another important point is that second-layer solutions like LN are more accurately methods to scale the number of transactions per user, rather than methods to scale the user base itself.  This is because the "state" of the ledger (e.g., the number of unspent outputs) scales with the number of identities rather than with the number of transactions.  



So LN isn't a panacea that would permit massive scaling of the user base while keeping the cost to run a node low anyways.  

[franky1]

Ps: I've heard the Roger crew pushing for way less than 94% so the hardfork would be nasty. They know they would never get anywhere near 94% no matter how many millions they invest in their propaganda.

ill match your "Ps: I've heard.." propaganda..
and ill raise you "Ps: I quote gmaxwell pushing for way less than 94%"

If there is some reason when the users of Bitcoin would rather have it activate at 90%  ... then even with the 95% rule the network could choose to activate it at 90% just by orphaning the blocks of the non-supporters until 95%+ of the remaining blocks signaled activation.

[digaran]

I think those people against increasing block size are from or work for government/private sector/big banks. if we continue like this we'll end up only with higher fees and again higher fees to a point where you could only send bitcoin if you paid $10 as a fee.

[franky1]

I think those people against increasing block size are from or work for government/private sector/big banks. if we continue like this we'll end up only with higher fees and again higher fees to a point where you could only send bitcoin if you paid $10 as a fee.

government.. probably not. but there is HUGE evidence of private sector/banks

after all blockstream need to force people to use commercial services soon as they are staked with a $90m debt that needs repaying and need to start showing income if they ever want to show they can repay to ither hold off the bailiffs or to be able to ask for more VC funding

http://dcg.co/network/#b
https://www.hyperledger.org/about/members

their scripted unpaid interns will shout any unresearched fud/propaganda they can that commercialising bitcoin via LN is utopia. but as soon as people show the details such as the fee's penalties, service limitations and end user experience.. they go quiet.

[digaran]

It's time for Core developers to show more flexibility and be responsible, if majority of miners see that their future interests are at risk just by refusing larger blocks they might start to think about switching to BU and Bitcoin Core suddenly becomes the minority and kicked off from the scene.
Without sacrifice nothing great could be achieved, you think you can stay on top while ignoring the reasonable concerns of community?

[franky1]

It's time for Core developers to show more flexibility and be responsible, if majority of miners see that their future interests are at risk just by refusing larger blocks they might start to think about switching to BU and Bitcoin Core suddenly becomes the minority and kicked off from the scene.
Without sacrifice nothing great could be achieved, you think you can stay on top while ignoring the reasonable concerns of community?

pools know its not a "kick off the network if BU is adopted"

pools hold back on any changes if there isint already majority node acceptance.

pools dont care much about 'fee's as their income. for decades they see fee's as just a bonus. its the block reward that is their "income" they wont do crap that would hurt their "income"

60% of pools are undecided because even though nodes are not voting for segwit, pools know that nodes matter. so they are waiting for unofficial majority to mitigate orphan risk (this is not a split risk. just a single chain with orphans dropping off the side)

[RawDog]

It's time for Core developers to show more flexibility and be responsible, if majority of miners see that their future interests are at risk just by refusing larger blocks they might start to think about switching to BU and Bitcoin Core suddenly becomes the minority and kicked off from the scene.
Without sacrifice nothing great could be achieved, you think you can stay on top while ignoring the reasonable concerns of community?

pools know its not a "kick off the network if BU is adopted"

pools hold back on any changes if there isint already majority node acceptance.

pools dont care much about 'fee's as their income. for decades they see fee's as just a bonus. its the block reward that is their "income" they wont do crap that would hurt their "income"

60% of pools are undecided because even though nodes are not voting for segwit, pools know that nodes matter. so they are waiting for unofficial majority to mitigate orphan risk (this is not a split risk. just a single chain with orphans dropping off the side)

Forget the technical arguments.  The raging dishonesty and censorship is all you need to know about to have very good reason to stop Core/Blockstream.  The DDOSing of XT was a clear indicator that nothing about them is fair and reasonable.

Blockstream needs to die very soon.  Today is not soon enough.

[franky1]

Forget the technical arguments.  The raging dishonesty and censorship is all you need to know about to have very good reason to stop Core/Blockstream.  The DDOSing of XT was a clear indicator that nothing about them is fair and reasonable.

Blockstream needs to die very soon.  Today is not soon enough.

i would have said ages back that just taking blockstream out of the equation and going back to the old core and the other 12 implementations was acceptable playing field.

but blockstream have really got core wrapped around their fingers and now i just see the unpaid core devs as blockstream loyalists, hoping to get paid.. so i deem them unpaid blockstream interns now, definetly not independant open minded devs

[Velkro]

The idea of how bitcoin development shouldn't be centralized is ok and all, everyone is free to start their own bitcoin fork, but the problem is when delusional people think bitcoin unlimited is better than core and hard forking is a good idea.


Core got the best coders, the most realistic roadmap, the most solid vision for the long term.
Bitcoin Unlimited is smoke and mirrors and couldn't survive without Core's work. Hard forking will result in an Ethereum/Ehtereum Classic disaster and seems like BU people don't see this fact.

Many true words here. Its good that there is alternative in case of core developers will go mad berserk with their ideas.
Unlimited developers lately screwed up code, which resulted in invalid blocks, that is big mistake.

[franky1]

Unlimited developers lately screwed up code, which resulted in invalid blocks, that is big mistake.

1 reject lasting 2 seconds.. non drama
vs
sipa's 2013 long orphan chain lasting hours (leveldb 500k bug)

oh and need i list the many other rejects and orphans that occur often that are just as equal drama as the 1 reject. but occur alot and occur by core blocks.
https://blockchain.info/orphaned-blocks

atleast try to be factual about your opinion.

[pereira4]

There will never be "massive onchain scaling" overnight without massive node centralization. but there can be natural consensus growth onchain scaling over months-decades.
where NODES decide what they can cope with and it scales with what NODES can cope with to avoid the fake doomsdays of centralisations

fixed that for you

Wrong. Onchain scaling on a decentralized network backed by an huge amount of hashrate to guarantee top tier security while remaining decentralized as bitcoin delivers, will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS lag behind the centralized solutions such as Paypal, VISA, and other centralized payment networks when it comes to speed, cheapness to send the transactions and volume of the transactions. It's a losing game trying to outcompete them onchain in speed, fees and transaction volume, it will never happen, stop being delusional, this is just physics. We NEED a second layer to compete on that field, those are just simple facts of life. Stop being children about it. You can't have it all.