Block chain size/storage and slow downloads for new users

[RoadStress]

I'm wondering, if we see bitcoin, or just any cryptocurrency based upon the blockchain principle, large, whether the volume of the chain is not going to be problematic.

If we look at companies such as Visa

Bitcoin doesn't need to compete with Visa....
Visa is a payment processor, and if it wants to remain relevant in the coming decades, it will have to start offering bitcoin denominated lines of credit.

Please take what danielpbarron says with a grain of salt. He is the same guy that is trying really hard to make MP (Mircea Popescu) a really happy boss while he is advocating the keep of a 1MB blocksize limit. Visa will never to able to offer anything related with bitcoin with this 1MB block limit because they will not play the bid-for-space war. danielpbarron is more interested in his power and influence while playing nice for MP than the Bitcoin development!

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[danielpbarron]

Visa will never to able to offer anything related with bitcoin with this 1MB block limit because they will not play the bid-for-space war.

The idea is that they won't have to bid all that much because the limit will keep all the little transactions off the block chain and on the 3rd party ledgers. In this way, debts can build up between companies like Visa and get settled on a daily/weekly/monthly basis via the block chain. Yes, that means poor people don't get to anonymously buy anarchy themed lapel pins, but it ensures that poor people can verify that the worlds supply of money has not been corrupted. The only way to perform a legitimate validation of the transaction ledger is to retain a full copy of it on local devices, a task that becomes cost prohibitive as blocks become larger.

[CoinCidental]

Visa will never to able to offer anything related with bitcoin with this 1MB block limit because they will not play the bid-for-space war.

The idea is that they won't have to bid all that much because the limit will keep all the little transactions off the block chain and on the 3rd party ledgers. In this way, debts can build up between companies like Visa and get settled on a daily/weekly/monthly basis via the block chain. Yes, that means poor people don't get to anonymously buy anarchy themed lapel pins, but it ensures that poor people can verify that the worlds supply of money has not been corrupted. The only way to perform a legitimate validation of the transaction ledger is to retain a full copy of it on local devices, a task that becomes cost prohibitive as blocks become larger.

Storage is getting cheaper,bandwidth is getting cheaper ever year, by the time bigger blocks come,I think we'll be able to swallow them, just like now...

There is plenty of.lite wallets for anyone who can't be bothered running a full client

[danielpbarron]

Storage is getting cheaper,bandwidth is getting cheaper ever year, by the time bigger blocks come,I think we'll be able to swallow them, just like now...

There is plenty of.lite wallets for anyone who can't be bothered running a full client

That's not an assumption I want the world's economy to bank on.

And if you can't be bothered to maintain your own full node, you don't need your transactions on the block chain. The revolution in bitcoin wasn't the ability to pass around signed transactions; the revolution was in a distributed consensus of those signed transactions. If you aren't checking the validity of the transactions, you aren't using bitcoin. If you're using someone else's node to check the validity, you are relying on them! So then, what is the point of having your petty little transaction bloating up my hard drive!? The people who "can't be bothered" are never going to bother, and I do not want my money compromised to give them some illusion of freedom! Let them have checking accounts and credit cards denominated in bitcoin, and let them also have the option to validate a bank's books with their own inexpensive full node.

[RoadStress]

Visa will never to able to offer anything related with bitcoin with this 1MB block limit because they will not play the bid-for-space war.

The idea is that they won't have to bid all that much because the limit will keep all the little transactions off the block chain and on the 3rd party ledgers. In this way, debts can build up between companies like Visa and get settled on a daily/weekly/monthly basis via the block chain. Yes, that means poor people don't get to anonymously buy anarchy themed lapel pins, but it ensures that poor people can verify that the worlds supply of money has not been corrupted. The only way to perform a legitimate validation of the transaction ledger is to retain a full copy of it on local devices, a task that becomes cost prohibitive as blocks become larger.

Please highlight to me the offchain solution that is available since we are approaching the 1MB block limit very fast.

And if you can't be bothered to maintain your own full node, you don't need your transactions on the block chain. The revolution in bitcoin wasn't the ability to pass around signed transactions; the revolution was in a distributed consensus of those signed transactions. If you aren't checking the validity of the transactions, you aren't using bitcoin. If you're using someone else's node to check the validity, you are relying on them! So then, what is the point of having your petty little transaction bloating up my hard drive!? The people who "can't be bothered" are never going to bother, and I do not want my money compromised to give them some illusion of freedom! Let them have checking accounts and credit cards denominated in bitcoin, and let them also have the option to validate a bank's books with their own inexpensive full node.

So now you are trying to force every bitcoin user to have a full node? Just like every webpage visitor has a full server in his house? Satoshi never visioned such a world. He stated that the full nodes will be centralized and that people will use Light clients. Why are you trying to impose YOUR point of view on everyone else? Why don't you let everyone to decide if they are ok with centralized nodes or not? Why do you think that there will not be some kind of trusted full nodes service where people can whitelist and blacklist centralized nodes? Stop trying to limit stuff and stop being MP dog who just follows orders!

[danielpbarron]

So now you are trying to force every bitcoin user to have a full node? Just like every webpage visitor has a full server in his house? Satoshi never visioned such a world. He stated that the full nodes will be centralized and that people will use Light clients. Why are you trying to impose YOUR point of view on everyone else? Why don't you let everyone to decide if they are ok with centralized nodes or not? Why do you think that there will not be some kind of trusted full nodes service where people can whitelist and blacklist centralized nodes? Stop trying to limit stuff and stop being MP dog who just follows orders!

If you aren't running a full node, you aren't using bitcoin! That's not me "forcing" anything; it's just a fact. The more apt analogy is gold backed paper currency -- those handling the physical gold are like the full node operators, and those who just pass around paper bills are like the thin client users. It's not inherently wrong to use the bills rather than the metal, but the system shouldn't be crafted around the paper. Your suggestion is that I shouldn't mind that all the gold be stored in a few "trusted" warehouses rather than dispersed throughout the world in many different locations. You seem to gloss over the fact that your level of trust with the nodes isn't the issue; it's that there being few of them makes it trivial for a government to seize the whole thing. Was the demise of the Liberty Dollar due to a lack of trust from his clients? No. It was because a rouge state stole his assets and arrested him.

For what it's worth, MP has not "ordered" me to do anything. I waste my time on the forums against his recommendation. I can't find it in the logs, but I recall asking him if I should post here and him responding in the negative. How about you stop "limiting stuff" to what some bad programmer said and stop following the orders of UnSavoryGarnish.

[CoinCidental]

So now you are trying to force every bitcoin user to have a full node? Just like every webpage visitor has a full server in his house? Satoshi never visioned such a world. He stated that the full nodes will be centralized and that people will use Light clients. Why are you trying to impose YOUR point of view on everyone else? Why don't you let everyone to decide if they are ok with centralized nodes or not? Why do you think that there will not be some kind of trusted full nodes service where people can whitelist and blacklist centralized nodes? Stop trying to limit stuff and stop being MP dog who just follows orders!

If you aren't running a full node, you aren't using bitcoin! That's not me "forcing" anything; it's just a fact. The more apt analogy is gold backed paper currency -- those handling the physical gold are like the full node operators, and those who just pass around paper bills are like the thin client users. It's not inherently wrong to use the bills rather than the metal, but the system shouldn't be crafted around the paper. Your suggestion is that I shouldn't mind that all the gold be stored in a few "trusted" warehouses rather than dispersed throughout the world in many different locations. You seem to gloss over the fact that your level of trust with the nodes isn't the issue; it's that there being few of them makes it trivial for a government to seize the whole thing. Was the demise of the Liberty Dollar due to a lack of trust from his clients? No. It was because a rouge state stole his assets and arrested him.

For what it's worth, MP has not "ordered" me to do anything. I waste my time on the forums against his recommendation. I can't find it in the logs, but I recall asking him if I should post here and him responding in the negative. How about you stop "limiting stuff" to what some bad programmer said and stop following the orders of UnSavoryGarnish.

its not the same as your analogy because people who have lite wallets
are still posession of their own "gold"

the "gold" doesnt belong to the "warehouse" node just because you maybe using a litewallet

i have a lot of coins stored in a  multibit wallet i use when im travelling but theyre not any less secure than coins stored  in my full client node , AFAIK theyre both bulletproof provided the systems dont get compromised by malware or keyloggers or whatever

[danielpbarron]

its not the same as your analogy because people who have lite wallets
are still posession of their own "gold"

the "gold" doesnt belong to the "warehouse" node just because you maybe using a litewallet

i have a lot of coins stored in a  multibit wallet i use when im travelling but theyre not any less secure than coins stored  in my full client node , AFAIK theyre both bulletproof provided the systems dont get compromised by malware or keyloggers or whatever

It's not about who "owns" the gold; it's about whether the gold is actually there or not. Obviously bearers of a gold certificate are considered to be "owners" of the corresponding bar, but that is not a guarantee that the gold actually exists. Your multibit wallet has to get transaction data from a full node, and if that full node says your address has funds when it actually doesn't, you may be tricked into making a bad deal. This isn't about having an insecure private key; it's about nodes falsifying transaction history. I don't need your private key in order to create a transaction that appears to send you funds; if you don't have a full copy of the transaction history to verify it, you won't be able to tell a bogus transaction from a legitimate one. If everyone comes to rely on the few "trusted nodes" like bc.i, and a malicious state takes over these nodes, they can create whatever transaction history they like and people like you will not be able to recognize the difference.

[RoadStress]

If you aren't running a full node, you aren't using bitcoin! That's not me "forcing" anything; it's just a fact. The more apt analogy is gold backed paper currency -- those handling the physical gold are like the full node operators, and those who just pass around paper bills are like the thin client users. It's not inherently wrong to use the bills rather than the metal, but the system shouldn't be crafted around the paper. Your suggestion is that I shouldn't mind that all the gold be stored in a few "trusted" warehouses rather than dispersed throughout the world in many different locations.

The system should be crafted around a mix of security and easy of use. How would you feel if Adobe would require you to host a server and to keep the current Flash installer hosted there? The same can apply Firefox or Chrome or any other file that you need to download. It would be a very stupid thing just like your imaginary fact

Also by your logic you just denied Bitcoin to AT LEAST 2 bil people who can't afford to keep a rPi plugged in all the time. There are TONS of people in Africa or in the Jungle or in China who could use Bitcoin with a very cheap Android smartphone (internet usage) or a cheap Nokia for SMS usage. People in Africa will not be able to host a node. Look at Australia's Internet speed. They are in the stone age there. It will take a lot of time to get those speeds in Africa, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to use Bitcoin. They should use Bitcoin and we already have ways to do it. Why exclude them? Just because you want it? What about we exclude you from this forum because you don't have a scuba diving suit or because you don't have a proper server which can feed the contents of the forum? Sounds retard? Well it's the same with your brilliant idea.

You seem to gloss over the fact that your level of trust with the nodes isn't the issue; it's that there being few of them makes it trivial for a government to seize the whole thing. Was the demise of the Liberty Dollar due to a lack of trust from his clients? No. It was because a rouge state stole his assets and arrested him.

Last that I've checked there were mode than 6k nodes all spread all over the world. Which government are you talking about? And how do they plan to do it? Just as they did with torrents? You don't seem to trust the technology that is behind Bitcoin or you simply don't understand it.

[danielpbarron]

The system should be crafted around a mix of security and easy of use.

No; security should be the #1 priority of the network. The "ease of use" side should be provided off the block chain. Those who favor easy over secure can have their cup of punch without there being a turd in the bowl.

Also by your logic you just denied Bitcoin to AT LEAST 2 bil people who can't afford to keep a rPi plugged in all the time.

Those people can use whatever they currently use but with bitcoin backing it instead of FIAT. They can use their local node to confirm that the money supply is not being debased. And do not use the raspberry pi; it sucks.

Last that I've checked there were mode than 6k nodes all spread all over the world. Which government are you talking about? And how do they plan to do it? Just as they did with torrents? You don't seem to trust the technology that is behind Bitcoin or you simply don't understand it.

Even if that "6k" figure were accurateⁱ, it should still be a great concern; that is a shockingly low number! It isn't going to get larger by making the cost to run one greater. The government I am talking about is the U.S. Government; the one currently in control of the world's reserve currency; the one that stands to lose a lot when bitcoin takes over. How do they do it? It's too late for them to kill it via the hashing route, and shorting it hasn't worked. They seem to think they can kill it by breaking it from within. People like you, whether on their payroll or just stupid, are helping them by pushing this bad idea that the rules need to change. I don't trust the technology? You're the one who wants to change it!


i : it isn't

mircea_popescu: there are 1433 nodes with 90% uptime
mircea_popescu: there are 323 nodes with 99% uptime.
mircea_popescu: and just 60 with 99.9% uptime.
thestringpuller: MP where are you getting these stats?
mircea_popescu: people keep derping about uh oh, 7k nodes. BULLSHIT. we're down from 270k to 61.
mircea_popescu: thestringpuller http://log.b-a.link/?date=03-02-2015#1004122
assbot: Logged on 03-02-2015 05:21:45; asciilifeform: http://bitcoin.sipa.be/seeds.txt
mircea_popescu: and whilke this massacre's going on, "uh oh, 20mb blocks, it will work fine"
mircea_popescu: gavin's mother on black cocks will work fine.

[onemorexmr]

The system should be crafted around a mix of security and easy of use.

No; security should be the #1 priority of the network. The "ease of use" side should be provided off the block chain. Those who favor easy over secure can have their cup of punch without there being a turd in the bowl.

true

Even if that "6k" figure were accurateⁱ, it should still be a great concern; that is a shockingly low number! It isn't going to get larger by making the cost to run one greater. The government I am talking about is the U.S. Government; the one currently in control of the world's reserve currency; the one that stands to lose a lot when bitcoin takes over. How do they do it? It's too late for them to kill it via the hashing route, and shorting it hasn't worked. They seem to think they can kill it by breaking it from within. People like you, whether on their payroll or just stupid, are helping them by pushing this bad idea that the rules need to change. I don't trust the technology? You're the one who wants to change it!


i : it isn't

mircea_popescu: there are 1433 nodes with 90% uptime
mircea_popescu: there are 323 nodes with 99% uptime.
mircea_popescu: and just 60 with 99.9% uptime.
thestringpuller: MP where are you getting these stats?
mircea_popescu: people keep derping about uh oh, 7k nodes. BULLSHIT. we're down from 270k to 61.

well... with a p2p network uptime is not really important.
its the amount of connectible nodes that count.

though 6k is not much. for that reason i started a node.. (well only one... btw why does mp not fire up a few? he has way more resources than me)

[Mikestang]

How does the number of active nodes compare with the number of active miners?  I'm guess there are way more miners than there are people running full nodes.  I do both in support of the network.

[danielpbarron]

well... with a p2p network uptime is not really important.
its the amount of connectible nodes that count.

though 6k is not much. for that reason i started a node.. (well only one... btw why does mp not fire up a few? he has way more resources than me)

Well, a node isn't "connectible" if it isn't turned on and caught up.

As to making more nodes, we're working on it.

How does the number of active nodes compare with the number of active miners?  I'm guess there are way more miners than there are people running full nodes.  I do both in support of the network.

A miner is necessarily a full node; there must always be more full nodes than there are miners. And it's not just "in support of the network;" it's in support of yourself. The only way to really know if you have funds or not is to check the full transaction history.

[Mikestang]

A miner is necessarily a full node; there must always be more full nodes than there are miners.

I don't think either of those statements are true at all.  You can mine without a node installed on your computer.  A miner is not validating and propagating the block chain, it's looking for a solution for the current block.  Multiple miners can point to a pool, the pool only needs one node to support thousands of miners.  I'm pretty sure there are way, way more people mining than are running full nodes.

[onemorexmr]

A miner is necessarily a full node; there must always be more full nodes than there are miners.

I don't think either of those statements are true at all.  You can mine without a node installed on your computer.  A miner is not validating and propagating the block chain, it's looking for a solution for the current block.  Multiple miners can point to a pool, the pool only needs one node to support thousands of miners.  I'm pretty sure there are way, way more people mining than are running full nodes.

only the pool is the miner - not you running some hardware
(except for p2pool or eligius with getblocktemplate (not sure if its still supported though)

[Orphicius]

Imagine in 10 years's time, it wont take a week to sinc, but a generation.

[CoinCidental]

Imagine in 10 years's time, it wont take a week to sinc, but a generation.

the average user will have a pruned version or lite client by then
most people wont need to have the last 16 years of transaction history so i think its a non issue

[RoadStress]

The system should be crafted around a mix of security and easy of use.

No; security should be the #1 priority of the network. The "ease of use" side should be provided off the block chain. Those who favor easy over secure can have their cup of punch without there being a turd in the bowl.

If we can have trusted places where we can download software without the fear of them being infected with viruses/malware then we can have trusted operators/nodes so that some users can use only a lightweight client without burdening them with a full node requirement. You sound like this is something impossible, but it's far from being impossible. What's the use of every user running a full node if they can't trust the place where they download the Bitcoin Core software?

There are many different providers of hosted files and some are trusted (Firefox, Google, Bitcoin.org etc) and some are untrusted. A random invented example would be www.OptimizeMyPC.com that promises to speed up your computer if you download their tool which is filled with malware/trojans.

We can have this with Bitcoin nodes too. This is just another business opportunity and this is very easily doable.

Again nothing constructive from your posts. Just the usual MP quotes and the usual and useless "limiting stuff is better". You have a very limited and pessimistic vision about this whole ecosystem.

[justusranvier]

Imagine in 10 years's time, it wont take a week to sinc, but a generation.

In 10 years I think we'll have a working combination of zero knowledge proofs plus committed UTXO sets that make syncing all the way back to the genesis block unnecessary.

[danielpbarron]

If we can have trusted places where we can download software without the fear of them being infected with viruses/malware then we can have trusted operators/nodes so that some users can use only a lightweight client without burdening them with a full node requirement.

If you're gonna just go trusting people, then why do you need your transaction on the block chain? The block chain is for when you don't trust anyone. You are arguing in favor of what amounts to security theater. People are worse off if they think simply having a private key is what makes their funds safe. Instead of them trusting a node to relay their petty transactions, they can just as well trust a bitcoin denominated bank to make a promise on their behalf. The banks can then settle balance differences in large chunks on a daily basis, thereby keeping the size of the block chain minimal. In this way, anybody can verify the process with an inexpensive node plugged into their home router. Whereas with your proposal, only a few wealthy people can verify the process despite everyone having access.

You have conceded that the common man will have to trust someone. Please stop with this nonsense that we must also make the block chain impossible for the common man to verify. It is not necessary to have both these results; only one is needed.