Please do not change MAX_BLOCK_SIZE

[Anon136]

hopefully open transactions will solve all these problems much more elegantly.

[1713274305]

1713274305

[1713274305]

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[d'aniel]

hopefully open transactions will solve all these problems much more elegantly.

If that's the end game, then I can't help but feel uneasy about having a dozen or so people collectively (via the proposed voting pool) having ultimate control over most of the bitcoins.  Systems that rely on trust tend not to be very decentralized (for cognitive reasons?).

[Anon136]

hopefully open transactions will solve all these problems much more elegantly.

If that's the end game, then I can't help but feel uneasy about having a dozen or so people collectively (via the proposed voting pool) having ultimate control over most of the bitcoins.  Systems that rely on trust tend not to be very decentralized (for cognitive reasons?).

blind signatures should protect from this. as an analogy, the banks wont be moving your money around directly but rather moving around a locked box full of money that you have given them that only you know the combination to. This way the money that you give to the bank will only be valuable to you and can never be used by the bank.

[oakpacific]

hopefully open transactions will solve all these problems much more elegantly.

If that's the end game, then I can't help but feel uneasy about having a dozen or so people collectively (via the proposed voting pool) having ultimate control over most of the bitcoins.  Systems that rely on trust tend not to be very decentralized (for cognitive reasons?).

blind signatures should protect from this. as an analogy, the banks wont be moving your money around directly but rather moving around a locked box full of money that you have given them that only you know the combination to. This way the money that you give to the bank will only be valuable to you and can never be used by the bank.

It's not the best analogy, a Chaumian token is more similar a a banknote.

[d'aniel]

blind signatures should protect from this. as an analogy, the banks wont be moving your money around directly but rather moving around a locked box full of money that you have given them that only you know the combination to. This way the money that you give to the bank will only be valuable to you and can never be used by the bank.

It's not the best analogy, a Chaumian token is more similar a a banknote.

That's correct.  The bitcoin-denominated tokens issued on OT servers are promises issued by the aforementioned voting pool to redeem for real bitcoins at par.  OT deals with the issue of trust by spreading it out across multiple parties via a multisignature transaction on the blockchain.  What makes me uneasy is there are technical, logistical, and cognitive limits on the total number of parties able to participate in the voting pool, and so the issue of trust ultimately still remains.

Edit: Furthermore, once trust enters the equation, anonymity usually leaves, since most people aren't willing to trust their money to strangers.  Thus, we likely haven't actually attained censorship resistance.

[justusranvier]

Furthermore, once trust enters the equation, anonymity usually leaves, since most people aren't willing to trust their money to strangers.  Thus, we likely haven't actually solved the problem of censorship resistance.

The solution is the Bitcoin blockchain.

All of these off blockchain ideas are all trying to solve the problem that Bitcoin solves, without using the amount of resources that a solution requires. It's never going to work out that way. If somebody does find a way to solve the decentralized transaction ordering problem in a way that's better than Bitcoin that technology isn't going to be an add-on to Bitcoin - it's going to be a new currency that replaces Bitcoin.

All of this effort around designing alternatives to the blockchain would be more effectively employed making the blockchain work. It's not going to be any easier to scale an off chain transaction processing system to huge rates and keep the same level of security and censorship resistance than it would be to scale the blockchain to the same level.

[d'aniel]

Furthermore, once trust enters the equation, anonymity usually leaves, since most people aren't willing to trust their money to strangers.  Thus, we likely haven't actually solved the problem of censorship resistance.

The solution is the Bitcoin blockchain.

All of these off blockchain ideas are all trying to solve the problem that Bitcoin solves, without using the amount of resources that a solution requires. It's never going to work out that way. If somebody does find a way to solve the decentralized transaction ordering problem in a way that's better than Bitcoin that technology isn't going to be an add-on to Bitcoin - it's going to be a new currency that replaces Bitcoin.

All of this effort around designing alternatives to the blockchain would be more effectively employed making the blockchain work. It's not going to be any easier to scale an off chain transaction processing system to huge rates and keep the same level of security and censorship resistance than it would be to scale the blockchain to the same level.

You're preaching to the choir

[maaku]

All of these off blockchain ideas are all trying to solve the problem that Bitcoin solves, without using the amount of resources that a solution requires. It's never going to work out that way. If somebody does find a way to solve the decentralized transaction ordering problem in a way that's better than Bitcoin that technology isn't going to be an add-on to Bitcoin - it's going to be a new currency that replaces Bitcoin.

All of this effort around designing alternatives to the blockchain would be more effectively employed making the blockchain work. It's not going to be any easier to scale an off chain transaction processing system to huge rates and keep the same level of security and censorship resistance than it would be to scale the blockchain to the same level.

Quoted... because it deserves to be said again. Thank you, justusranvier.

[oakpacific]

blind signatures should protect from this. as an analogy, the banks wont be moving your money around directly but rather moving around a locked box full of money that you have given them that only you know the combination to. This way the money that you give to the bank will only be valuable to you and can never be used by the bank.

It's not the best analogy, a Chaumian token is more similar a a banknote.

That's correct.  The bitcoin-denominated tokens issued on OT servers are promises issued by the aforementioned voting pool to redeem for real bitcoins at par.  OT deals with the issue of trust by spreading it out across multiple parties via a multisignature transaction on the blockchain.  What makes me uneasy is there are technical, logistical, and cognitive limits on the total number of parties able to participate in the voting pool, and so the issue of trust ultimately still remains.

Edit: Furthermore, once trust enters the equation, anonymity usually leaves, since most people aren't willing to trust their money to strangers.  Thus, we likely haven't actually attained censorship resistance.

The tradeoff will be worth it for certain scenarios--currently you already submit much of your personal data to exchange operators, with OT it's possible to provide a level of anonymity that even if government agents manage to obtain the transaction records, they can turn up hardly anything worthwhile.

[da2ce7]

If Bitcoin becomes popular, then people will not mind paying eqv. $100 in fees for buying a house.  When a house is 0.01 BTC.

7tpc is enough.  Let Bitcoin be the high-powered-money.  Not play money that you use at the corner store.

We can create any number of merge-mined chains for any number of other transactions.  These chains can be optimized for the particular purpose that they fulfill.  They can even be dominated in BTC (with clever escrow-bitcoin-look-up).


I for one would love to only have 7tpc. This would mean that it would be easy for everyone to audit the high powered money.  (we would know what the bankers are doing with our cash).  In-fact in 10 years, my mobile phone may be able to audit the entire chain. (with some dedicated cypto hardware).


On another note, merge-mined chains that fulfill other purposes will make the main Bitcoin chain more secure. So it is a win-win.

[amincd]

All of these off blockchain ideas are all trying to solve the problem that Bitcoin solves, without using the amount of resources that a solution requires. It's never going to work out that way. If somebody does find a way to solve the decentralized transaction ordering problem in a way that's better than Bitcoin that technology isn't going to be an add-on to Bitcoin - it's going to be a new currency that replaces Bitcoin.

All of this effort around designing alternatives to the blockchain would be more effectively employed making the blockchain work. It's not going to be any easier to scale an off chain transaction processing system to huge rates and keep the same level of security and censorship resistance than it would be to scale the blockchain to the same level.

+1 Very well explained.

7tpc is enough.  Let Bitcoin be the high-powered-money.  Not play money that you use at the corner store.

Bitcoin is supposed to be a "digital cash". If people are willing to pay a $100 transaction fee to make a transfer, they can just use a wire transfer.

[solex]

The solution is the Bitcoin blockchain.

All of these off blockchain ideas are all trying to solve the problem that Bitcoin solves, without using the amount of resources that a solution requires. It's never going to work out that way. If somebody does find a way to solve the decentralized transaction ordering problem in a way that's better than Bitcoin that technology isn't going to be an add-on to Bitcoin - it's going to be a new currency that replaces Bitcoin.

All of this effort around designing alternatives to the blockchain would be more effectively employed making the blockchain work. It's not going to be any easier to scale an off chain transaction processing system to huge rates and keep the same level of security and censorship resistance than it would be to scale the blockchain to the same level.

Fully agree. So the way forward seems to lie in two separate but significant Bitcoin enhancement projects:

1. Lightweight nodes with a pruned blockchain consisting of unspent transaction outputs (utxo) as described by etotheipi, which maaku is working to prototype. This benefits all non-mining nodes.

2. Block header propagation, perhaps requiring a pool of verification nodes. This benefits miners, reducing the need for mining pools and large block propagation.  A major technical problem exists in how this model of block-sharing copes with reorganizations. Is this solvable??

If these were implemented in a future release then Bitcoin would be well on the path for large-scale capacity while still retaining significant decentralization and low-bandwidth nodes.

This would mean that it would be easy for everyone to audit the high powered money.  (we would know what the bankers are doing with our cash).

If 99% of the transactions I want to do are priced away from the blockchain by high fees, then I certainly will be switching off my node rather than leaving it running to support fat-cat banksters who are monopolizing the blockchain.

[justusranvier]

7tpc is enough.  Let Bitcoin be the high-powered-money.  Not play money that you use at the corner store.

We can create any number of merge-mined chains for any number of other transactions.  These chains can be optimized for the particular purpose that they fulfill.  They can even be dominated in BTC (with clever escrow-bitcoin-look-up).


I for one would love to only have 7tpc. This would mean that it would be easy for everyone to audit the high powered money.  (we would know what the bankers are doing with our cash).  In-fact in 10 years, my mobile phone may be able to audit the entire chain. (with some dedicated cypto hardware).


On another note, merge-mined chains that fulfill other purposes will make the main Bitcoin chain more secure. So it is a win-win.

If it truly is win-win then you don't need an artificial limit of 7 transactions per second included in the Bitcoin protocol.

If those merge mined chains, and the off-chain transaction systems such as the ones you develop, really are valuable on their own merits then users will happily adopt them no matter how many transactions per second the Bitcoin network is capable of processing.

Open Transactions is valuable on its own merits, right? It's not that the only way you'll ever get a significant user base is if Bitcoin is artificially limited to a cripplingly low transaction rate, is it?

[tvbcof]

If 99% of the transactions I want to do are priced away from the blockchain by high fees, then I certainly will be switching off my node rather than leaving it running to support fat-cat banksters who are monopolizing the blockchain.

It does the 'fat cat banksters' a lot more good to see your transactions than it will you to see theirs.  If they have their way, you'll definitely have most of your activity in the block chain, and there will be a fair amount of information logged about how it got there.  So, don't worry, be happy.

Ya, ya, I know.  'Tor'.  Yawn.

[da2ce7]

If those merge mined chains, and the off-chain transaction systems such as the ones you develop, really are valuable on their own merits then users will happily adopt them no matter how many transactions per second the Bitcoin network is capable of processing.

I think that you miss the point, if you are having small transactions, they SHOULD NOT be audited by everyone in the world (or at least those who use Bitcoin).  The time-importance of small transactions is much lower than of high-powered-money transactions.

For-example, I could make a merge-mined chain that works like Bitcoin, where the value of any coins older 6 weeks is halved. (and forgotten once they get smaller than the smaller unit).  New miners would sell these coins, and people could trade over medium time periods.  (purchasing and selling this temporary currency for bitcoin).  However this is just one option that I made up then.  There is a multitude of possible merge-mined coins that could be developed.

However the key point, is that the whole world should not care about my transaction of going to the corner store and buying a coke.  Only transactions that are significant for everyone should be audited by everyone.  7tps seems like a good rate.

Open Transactions is valuable on its own merits, right? It's not that the only way you'll ever get a significant user base is if Bitcoin is artificially limited to a cripplingly low transaction rate, is it?

Open Transactions works completely differently to Bitcoin, they are in-fact extremely complementary.  They solve different problems.  Bitcoin solves the 'low-trust, everyone audits, value transfer.'  Open Transaction solves the problem 'anything that is related to something in the world should be able to be traded'.

[da2ce7]

If 99% of the transactions I want to do are priced away from the blockchain by high fees, then I certainly will be switching off my node rather than leaving it running to support fat-cat banksters who are monopolizing the blockchain.

I suggest that if it was 700tps running a full node would be prohibitively expensive, and commonly, only fat-cat banksters would run them.

[solex]

If 99% of the transactions I want to do are priced away from the blockchain by high fees, then I certainly will be switching off my node rather than leaving it running to support fat-cat banksters who are monopolizing the blockchain.

I suggest that if it was 700tps running a full node would be prohibitively expensive, and commonly, only fat-cat banksters would run them.

Not if the lightweight nodes and block header propagation software changes are done.
These are difficult changes, for sure. But if achievable, then all the off-chain, blockchain as backbone solutions become optional. They can succeed on their own merits, not because Bitcoin is crippled to 7tps.

[justusranvier]

For-example, I could make a merge-mined chain that works like Bitcoin, where the value of any coins older 6 weeks is halved. (and forgotten once they get smaller than the smaller unit).  New miners would sell these coins, and people could trade over medium time periods.  (purchasing and selling this temporary currency for bitcoin).  However this is just one option that I made up then.  There is a multitude of possible merge-mined coins that could be developed.

Of course anyone can invent any type of coin they want. The question is why would users chose to transact in self destructing money when they could use Bitcoin instead. The answer to this question only makes sense if Bitcoin is artificially restricted so that those users don't have a choice in the matter.

They solve different problems.  Bitcoin solves the 'low-trust, everyone audits, value transfer.'  Open Transaction solves the problem 'anything that is related to something in the world should be able to be traded'.

And you're going to do your best to make make sure Bitcoin stays in that pigeonhole so that it doesn't also solve the problem that makes your pet project valuable.

[gglon]

I suggest that if it was 700tps running a full node would be prohibitively expensive ...

Running 700tps would be prohibitively expensive for anonymous node only (my last post).

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Bitcoin is not designed for micro-transactions.

Oh my, this is so much of Bullshit.



You actually mean that the current Bitcoin client is not designed for microtransactions.

But future clients may require multiple computers or a cluster to run a single client (like BitsOfProof supernode).

It is entirely possible to write a client which will be able to process 100.000 transactions/second with today's technology and internet connections, so why the stupid "BTC is not designed for micro.... blah blah" talking ?

WTF is wrong with you people. Obviously, Bitcoin IS DESIGNED FOR MICROTRANSACTIONS. There is NOTHING in the Bitcoin protocol design that would not allow microtransactions.