[Jun 2024] Fees are high, wait for opportunity to Consolidate your small inputs

[LoyceV]

With 10 times bigger blocks, fees still won't be zero. There will be more transactions and more people could use Bitcoin. That means more people pay fees, so the total fee will still pay millions to miners.

What's plan B in the plausible scenario that the people that use it as currency don't do a 10x?

Plan B will be a slower increase in hashrate after the next halving, that's all. That's not such a bad thing: it will still be improssible to do a 51% attack, and the miners' energy consumption may drop a bit. Bitcoin will just keep working.

[cryptosize]

The same way Toyota does versus Ferrari, you sell 10 millions cars instead of 100, in bigger batches..you know what I mean

If you increase the block size limit (which is what I presume you mean), you're destroying the fee market competition, and you're making less money as a miner. So, it's worse.

Then we should reduce the space to 10kb, allowing only $10k+ tx because buying coffee with bitcoin is pointless, right?  

To be honest I would love for the ones being against bigger blocks would make up their mind and form a group so they don't go against each other cause I keep hearing contrarian arguments

It's not a contrarian argument to suggest that a block size change (increase AND decrease) would initiate a hard fork/altcoin with unforeseen consequences.

I think it would have been better if Satoshi had implemented a gradual block size increase along with halvings every 4 years (there's a post of him about that), but now it's too late, Bitcoin parameters are ossified as much as IPv4's 32-bit limit.

I don't know why he didn't implement it... maybe he eventually thought it was a bad idea (due to fee market concerns), or maybe he didn't have enough time. We'll never know, but now we're stuck with what we have.

Every single thing in this world from air travel to superstores has become attractive because of scaling, driving prices cheaper, and making it more affordable for everyone driving more customers and revenue than you could do with a premium product

BTC is not a regular commodity.

It's not like wheat or oil where you can increase the production... most commodities don't have a supply cap.

If someone initiated a successful hard fork with a 21 billion BTC supply cap, then for sure it would become more affordable for the masses (everyone would be able to be a wholecoiner).

If the fee market alone is not enough to sustain the mining activity long-term wise (2140+), then you realize that the fixed 21 million BTC limit is not ideal, right?

Would you suggest a tail emission hard fork (like XMR did)?

Every BTC hard fork has a huge risk to split the community in half, you gotta realize that.

Yup just like Ford destroyed car manufacturing, like jumbo jets destroyed air travel, like huge chain hotels destroyed tourism and so on..

Cars/jumbo jets/hotel are not meant to be scarce, unlike Bitcoin ("boring grey metal").

It's just funny that no matter what no matter how many people use bitcoin, no matter how much they use it we should stick to this 1MB block because that will do it no matter what, good that the world population is not going up because I would envision 2500 with 200 billion people all competing to get their tx in the same 1 MB block.

LOL, the planet does not have enough resources to sustain 200 billion people (not to mention the CO2 emissions/climate agenda) and in case you meant space colonies in other planets, then Bitcoin would be pointless, since TCP/IP is a latency-intolerant protocol, so Bitcoin wouldn't work on an hypothetical interplanetary internet.

Mars is like 20 minutes away in terms of light speed, so good luck syncing a blockchain with 10-minute block intervals.

I've already said it, there is only one, and I am also all ears what do you think the solution would be?

Layer 2, with careful OP code activation through softforks. This could allow solutions such as sharing one UTXO with multiple users to be implemented.

If they achieve that, it would be akin to RFC 1918 (NAT) in IPv4 -> lots of computers sharing the same 32-bit address.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Plan B will be a slower increase in hashrate after the next halving, that's all. That's not such a bad thing: it will still be improssible to do a 51% attack, and the miners' energy consumption may drop a bit. Bitcoin will just keep working.

What about the halving after that? Or the second after that? In less than 20 years from now, the block subsidy will be less than 0.1 bitcoin. Block space has to be valuable.

If they achieve that, it would be akin to RFC 1918 (NAT) in IPv4 -> lots of computers sharing the same 32-bit address.

That's a good comparison. Solutions that group users in a single UXTO are in very early stages, and will probably never be implemented without softforks. You can check out CoinPool, it's one of them. It can work more efficiently and privately than LN, at the cost of high interactivity.

Another cool L2 is this: https://arkdev.info/docs/learn/intro. Its focus is fast, cheap and confidential transactions. Requires a softfork as well. There are more ideas, and it'll probably be just one L2 which will reach mass adoption, if any. Each one comes with its own tradeoffs, the market will decide which tradeoffs are the best to have.

[LoyceV]

What about the halving after that? Or the second after that? In less than 20 years from now, the block subsidy will be less than 0.1 bitcoin. Block space has to be valuable.

In 20 years, Bitcoin could be worth far above $1M. That puts 0.1 Bitcoin per block at 15 million dollars per day. If blocks are ten times larger (and still full), just 1 sat/vbyte is enough to double that. I'm much more worried about the current damage done to the Bitcoin ecosystem: if people can't make transactions, they can't use Bitcoin. If Bitcoin can't be used, it can't grow. I'm not worried about block rewards 20 years in the future, I'm worried about the current status.

[NeuroticFish]

What about the halving after that? Or the second after that? In less than 20 years from now, the block subsidy will be less than 0.1 bitcoin. Block space has to be valuable.

In 20 years, Bitcoin could be worth far above $1M. That puts 0.1 Bitcoin per block at 15 million dollars per day. If blocks are ten times larger (and still full), just 1 sat/vbyte is enough to double that. I'm much more worried about the current damage done to the Bitcoin ecosystem: if people can't make transactions, they can't use Bitcoin. If Bitcoin can't be used, it can't grow. I'm not worried about block rewards 20 years in the future, I'm worried about the current status.

You are only partly right imho. Yes, Bitcoin has to grow. But increasing block space doesn't solve this properly, only move the problem for a bit later.
On the other hand, innovation tends to come when there's a need for it. And we do need innovation, for a proper scalability solution.

Yes, I know, it may sound a bit harsh. On the other hand we start getting used to use on-chain transactions only when it's meaningful (hence worth paying even 50$+ for it). For the rest, for small amounts like for example the signature campaigns or paying for VPN, sorry, but LN, no matter how imperfect it is, is the solution we should really consider. At least until the proper solution is discovered and implemented.

[BlackHatCoiner]

If blocks are ten times larger (and still full), just 1 sat/vbyte is enough to double that.

That's a bold hypothesis. We're 15 years after the creation of Bitcoin, and how many users actually do "legitimate" transactions? Like, transactions where they don't just store trash using tapscript. 'Cause I remember before Ordinals, I was paying 1 sat/vb and had it confirmed within the next few minutes.

And as I already said, I'm not arguing that a subtle block size increase will destroy the fee market competition completely. It's just not going to resolve the scalability issue. It'll be a temporary solution. If 1 BTC = $1M, then 1 sat/vb will still be $1.40 for an average segwit native transaction. That still is expensive and unappealing for when making lots of transactions every day, let alone larger in size.

I'm not worried about block rewards 20 years in the future, I'm worried about the current status.

To be honest, I'm worried about the future because Bitcoin is the foundation of the future of money. My concerns are more about what will happen in 20, 50, or 100 years from now.

This may sound a bit anti-Bitcoin, but after four years of exploring Bitcoin, I've come to an important conclusion: Bitcoin is not meant for buying coffee or conducting other low-value transactions, at least not on-chain. It represents the best monetary standard we can have, and using it for such purposes undervalues its true potential.

If you want a peer-to-peer cash system with low on-chain fees, excellent privacy, and a similar level of decentralization, then Monero is the ideal choice. It functions exactly as desired. Its dynamic block size is superior to any fixed size if your sole goal is to maximize the number of on-chain transactions.

[stompix]

I've already said it a hundred times, doubling
I wasn't even talking about forks. And my "opinion" is just basic economics. If you rise the block size limit, there's more supply of a block size with demand remaining the same. As a consequence, the block reward declines.

Gooood! Since we're on the consolidate to save$  topic, I feel so happy that you finally agree with me that bigger blocks will drop the average fees! At least here we're on the same page!

Second layers isn't "praying for a magical fix". It's a work in progress. Here's a list of promising second layer solutions: https://l2.watch/. "Doing something", which might turn out a terrible decision, merely for the sake of a temporary solution is not the ideal approach for shaping the future of money.

I can't help myself and I can't stop saying things the way I feel, sorry if you feel offended by this but
Die wunderwaffe!!!

Let's be completely honest about this, you talk about people moving to second chains, when
-the majority here, here on bitcointalk!, doesn't know what a spv wallet is, how fees work, how to use damn coin control, and you believe..
- again right here on this forum, so one of the cores of the community, people are advising to use altcoins, to batch signature campaigns to monthly payments, to use direct payments to cex account, and even started dealing more with usdt and stable coin in the marketplace

This is exactly wunderwaffe material, you're not seeing the reality from your bunker, and there will be no usage left whatsoever if things don't get done fast!

In 20 years, Bitcoin could be worth far above $1M. That puts 0.1 Bitcoin per block at 15 million dollars per day. If blocks are ten times larger (and still full), just 1 sat/vbyte is enough to double that. I'm much more worried about the current damage done to the Bitcoin ecosystem: if people can't make transactions, they can't use Bitcoin. If Bitcoin can't be used, it can't grow. I'm not worried about block rewards 20 years in the future, I'm worried about the current status.

There is a more problematic math at work here, every time Bitcoin grows the amount guarded grows, with Bitcoin at 1 million there is 19 trillion in wealth there ( for comparison GDP of USA), that will be guarded by gear worth the budget of Houston, that is if everyone agrees to pay $50 per tx, if not, the budget of Ulft  .
But everything will be fine!!!!!

[LoyceV]

You are only partly right imho. Yes, Bitcoin has to grow. But increasing block space doesn't solve this properly, only move the problem for a bit later.

Since 2023, the problem moved the other way: there's much less blockspace being used for normal transactions.

On the other hand, innovation tends to come when there's a need for it. And we do need innovation, for a proper scalability solution.

If it would be easy, we'd have it by now.

we start getting used to use on-chain transactions only when it's meaningful (hence worth paying even 50$+ for it). For the rest, for small amounts like for example the signature campaigns or paying for VPN, sorry, but LN, no matter how imperfect it is, is the solution we should really consider.

Who's going to open a LN channel if it costs $50? And another $50 or more to close the channel? If something goes wrong (which has happened to me opening a channel), you're down $100 without any results.
In the past year, how many payments have you made that are worth $50 in fees? I can't think of anything.

If blocks are ten times larger (and still full), just 1 sat/vbyte is enough to double that.

That's a bold hypothesis. We're 15 years after the creation of Bitcoin, and how many users actually do "legitimate" transactions? Like, transactions where they don't just store trash using tapscript. 'Cause I remember before Ordinals, I was paying 1 sat/vb and had it confirmed within the next few minutes.

I remember the end of 2017: blocks were full, and fees were crazy. Even back then, I felt like Bitcoin can't grow if it's too expensive to use. I'd like to make much more transactions than I do now, but the price is too high. Who's going to accept Bitcoin as a payment if it costs too much to transfer it again? I just paid my VPN, which I could have done with Bitcoin, but I used Monero.
You're saying there may not be enough demand to fill 10 MB blocks. I'm saying the lack of demand may be because it's currently impractical to use. As they say: "fix the money, fix the world"!

And as I already said, I'm not arguing that a subtle block size increase will destroy the fee market competition completely. It's just not going to resolve the scalability issue.

Agreed. It's not a permanent fix. But it may give Bitcoin some space to grow until there's a better solution.

My concerns are more about what will happen in 20, 50, or 100 years from now.

How do you see Bitcoin in 20 years, if the majority of users can only "own" Bitcoin on a CEX or ETF?

This may sound a bit anti-Bitcoin, but after four years of exploring Bitcoin, I've come to an important conclusion: Bitcoin is not meant for buying coffee or conducting other low-value transactions, at least not on-chain. It represents the best monetary standard we can have, and using it for such purposes undervalues its true potential.

My worry goes deeper: can it be a monetary standard if it can't be used by normal people?

If you want a peer-to-peer cash system with low on-chain fees, excellent privacy, and a similar level of decentralization, then Monero is the ideal choice. It functions exactly as desired. Its dynamic block size is superior to any fixed size if your sole goal is to maximize the number of on-chain transactions.

I synced Monero's full blockchain a while back, and it's much more demanding on the system than Bitcoin's IBD, even though Monero is much smaller. If Monero would have more transactions than Bitcoin, I expect it to become impossible for home users to run their own node. I like Monero, but I don't think it can scale to many more transactions.

There is a more problematic math at work here, every time Bitcoin grows the amount guarded grows, with Bitcoin at 1 million there is 19 trillion in wealth there

The only "worry" is for the amount being transfered. That's the part that can be replaced in a 51% attack. There's no moment all 19 trillion is at risk at the same time.

[Cricktor]

I'm not entirely sure if I remember every detail correctly, many years have passed. At the start of Bitcoin I think blocksize was actually flexible and could grow if there was a need for it (there was no need for growth but it was in the code). What I don't remember: which conditions triggered a blocksize growth and where there conditions (and code) to let it shrink again.

Somewhere I read that this mechanism allowed some sort of attack, but I never looked deeper and understood why this could be a problem. Not sure if for this reason or something else Satoshi decided to set a fixed upper limit of 1MB.

Blocksize war was probably during the period where I didn't pay much attention to Bitcoin for a significant time (I had temporary Bitcoin disinterest 2014ish to maybe midth of 2017) and didn't visit this forum for months and maybe even for years. All I know, there was a blocksize war but frankly I didn't care about the details. There are certainly arguments that I missed and am not aware of.

What I remember from winter 2017: fees where absurdly high, mempools highly congested, it was bananas if you needed to urgently make transactions. We had Segwit, yes, but transaction space wasn't the main reason for it, it was a bonus. And Segwit didn't prevent any of the fee madness in 2017.

Later on we had again periods of severe mempool congestion and terribly high fees that've hindered use of Bitcoin for "normal folks". Induced congestion by Ordinals shit and now Runes shit is maybe very nice for miners but less so for "normal folks" again. There's another thread where this attached data bullshit has been discussed/complained extensively.

In which blocksize camp am I? I feel like the fixed limit of 4M WU is simply sometimes too rigid. Without overseeing all consequences, I admit frankly, I would favour some flexible growth and shrinkage on demand, triggered by some clever conditions, maybe similar to how difficulty is flexible on demand, too (maybe not with such a long window of approx. two weeks as a consequence of the adjustment period every 2016 blocks). The trigger conditions of course shouldn't be exploitable. Don't ask, I've no idea how this could be implemented.

I acknowledge the issue that timely not important transactions then barely need more than the minimum fee of currently 1sat/vB. If there are clever rules/conditions to remedy this, I'm open to hear them.

[BlackHatCoiner]

-the majority here, here on bitcointalk!, doesn't know what a spv wallet is, how fees work, how to use damn coin control

The majority of people don't know why Bitcoin is useful and important, so let's stop working and recommending it, please! There you go, am I clever now too?

This is exactly wunderwaffe material, you're not seeing the reality from your bunker, and there will be no usage left whatsoever if things don't get done fast!

So, let me get this straight. You believe we need to implement changes quickly and pursue vertical scaling (i.e., increasing block size), despite its obvious long-term flaws, instead of utilizing one of the many altcoins that have already adopted this approach?

Allow me to clarify. You believe we should quickly implement changes to a trillion-dollar asset, which serves as the cornerstone of a new monetary system, simply because you dislike waiting for alternative second-layer solutions to be developed. Could you explain why not using an altcoin instead?

You're saying there may not be enough demand to fill 10 MB blocks. I'm saying the lack of demand may be because it's currently impractical to use. As they say: "fix the money, fix the world"!

Let's look at the closest evidence we have to verify this claim: altcoins.

- Bitcoin Cash is the Bitcoin fork I'd use if I was forbidden from using Bitcoin. Total transactions in the last 24 hours: 14,546. Block size limit: 32 MB, block interval: 10 minutes.
- Total Litecoin transactions in the last 24 hours: 181,694. Block size limit: 1 MB, every 2.5 minutes. (in 10 minutes: 4 MB)
- Total Dogecoin transactions in the last 24 hours: 62,270. Block size limit: 1 MB, once a minute. (in 10 minutes: 10 MB)

Total Bitcoin transactions in the last 24 hours: 862,464. If high on-chain capacity is what the world wants, then we should expect them to have migrated, and do more on-chain transactions there. It's clearly not the case, though.

My worry goes deeper: can it be a monetary standard if it can't be used by normal people?

It can be used. It's just not suitable for everyday transactions on the asset layer.

How do you see Bitcoin in 20 years, if the majority of users can only "own" Bitcoin on a CEX or ETF?

Who said they cannot have their own space in the chain?

I like Monero, but I don't think it can scale to many more transactions.

It probably can't. You can't have the cake and eat it too. You either accept the tradeoffs of the fixed-sized block, or the ones of the dynamical-sized.

[cryptosize]

I'm not entirely sure if I remember every detail correctly, many years have passed. At the start of Bitcoin I think blocksize was actually flexible and could grow if there was a need for it (there was no need for growth but it was in the code). What I don't remember: which conditions triggered a blocksize growth and where there conditions (and code) to let it shrink again.

Somewhere I read that this mechanism allowed some sort of attack, but I never looked deeper and understood why this could be a problem. Not sure if for this reason or something else Satoshi decided to set a fixed upper limit of 1MB.

IIRC, there was an unofficial limit of 32MB and Satoshi capped it to 1MB to discourage spam attacks.

I don't remember if he had to hard fork the chain though. It was very early back then, very small network effect compared to today.

[NeuroticFish]

On the other hand, innovation tends to come when there's a need for it. And we do need innovation, for a proper scalability solution.

If it would be easy, we'd have it by now.

I don't expect to be easy.
LN is under used and doesn't seem to get a chance to mature because people are still expecting reasonable fees on-chain. (And yes, this includes me too, I know).

Who's going to open a LN channel if it costs $50? And another $50 or more to close the channel? If something goes wrong (which has happened to me opening a channel), you're down $100 without any results.

You won't like my answer, but, on the other hand, I think I've said it in the past that LN makes sense only for companies, i.e. as a service.
Yes, this means custodial, which is many will say "omg, never use custodial" when they are keeping their fiat in banks' hands. Of course, the bigger/consolidated amounts for long term storage have to go into self custody still, I am not idiot.

In the past year, how many payments have you made that are worth $50 in fees? I can't think of anything.

I didn't. I am as guilty as the most. The closest I can get is a consolidation I've waited for patiently for a couple of months and I've still ended up paying about 15$ in fees.
But the last 6+ months were more suitable for accumulating than spending, so it was no biggie to wait, not this time.

Agreed. It's not a permanent fix. But it may give Bitcoin some space to grow until there's a better solution.

I've seen in may life too many temporary fixes remaining there forever...

How do you see Bitcoin in 20 years, if the majority of users can only "own" Bitcoin on a CEX or ETF?

Look at El Salvador, they are happily using Bitcoin, not really caring it's in most cases actually in others' custody.
And I would not be surprised other kinds of Bitcoin IOUs will catch on.

This may sound a bit anti-Bitcoin, but after four years of exploring Bitcoin, I've come to an important conclusion: Bitcoin is not meant for buying coffee or conducting other low-value transactions, at least not on-chain. It represents the best monetary standard we can have, and using it for such purposes undervalues its true potential.

My worry goes deeper: can it be a monetary standard if it can't be used by normal people?

There can be the direction that anybody can still withdraw their bitcoin, but it's not really feasible due to fees, for example. That's where we are going now: Bitcoin as a reserve asset.
But the history of gold shows us that it's a dangerous direction (and I don't have a proper alternative; but imho bigger block size is not one).

*sigh* we may be the lucky ones who got to own actual Bitcoins (or satoshis) like the ones owning gold coins 100 years ago.

[LoyceV]

You're saying there may not be enough demand to fill 10 MB blocks. I'm saying the lack of demand may be because it's currently impractical to use. As they say: "fix the money, fix the world"!

Let's look at the closest evidence we have to verify this claim: altcoins.

- Bitcoin Cash is the Bitcoin fork I'd use if I was forbidden from using Bitcoin. Total transactions in the last 24 hours: 14,546. Block size limit: 32 MB, block interval: 10 minutes.
- Total Litecoin transactions in the last 24 hours: 181,694. Block size limit: 1 MB, every 2.5 minutes. (in 10 minutes: 4 MB)
- Total Dogecoin transactions in the last 24 hours: 62,270. Block size limit: 1 MB, once a minute. (in 10 minutes: 10 MB)

Total Bitcoin transactions in the last 24 hours: 862,464. If high on-chain capacity is what the world wants, then we should expect them to have migrated, and do more on-chain transactions there. It's clearly not the case, though.

I see what you did there. Although I expect the total number of Bitcoin transactions excluding the ones spamming data to be less than the total Litecoin transactions. But more importantly: I don't want to have to move to altcoins, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. I do have some small amounts for small transactions, but I'd prefer to use Bitcoin for that.

In the past year, how many payments have you made that are worth $50 in fees? I can't think of anything.

I didn't. I am as guilty as the most. The closest I can get is a consolidation I've waited for patiently for a couple of months and I've still ended up paying about 15$ in fees.

I didn't only mean Bitcoin transactions, I meant all financial transactions you make. I can pay by bank, without extra charge. I can pay by Paypal, they charge the receiving party several percent. I can pay by cash, no extra charge. Consolidating Bitcoins doesn't really count: that's the only thing where you have no alternative. For anything else, I have options.

Look at El Salvador, they are happily using Bitcoin, not really caring it's in most cases actually in others' custody.
And I would not be surprised other kinds of Bitcoin IOUs will catch on.

That's why I don't mind using custodial LN.

*sigh* we may be the lucky ones who got to own actual Bitcoins (or satoshis) like the ones owning gold coins 100 years ago.

Just like we may be the last generation who gets to hold actual paper money and metal coins. Chances are that's gone in a few decades.

[BlackHatCoiner]

LN is under used and doesn't seem to get a chance to mature because people are still expecting reasonable fees on-chain. (And yes, this includes me too, I know).

Personally, I'm satisfied with low fee altcoins, like Monero, so I don't find a reason to use it. Lightning is useful if you want transactions to be settled immediately, but that's almost never the case for me. I'm fine with 2 minutes block interval.

I see what you did there. Although I expect the total number of Bitcoin transactions excluding the ones spamming data to be less than the total Litecoin transactions.

Approximately 20% of the total Bitcoin transactions were 100% of the Litecoin total. For this to hold true, more than 680,000 Bitcoin transactions have to be "spam" according to you.

But more importantly: I don't want to have to move to altcoins, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. I do have some small amounts for small transactions, but I'd prefer to use Bitcoin for that.

If to accomplish it, you'd have to turn Bitcoin to an altcoin, would it be worth it? Because, that's what you'd do by tinkering with the block size. This risk has already been taken. This solution has already been implemented and tested by many altcoins. This community even had a cultural war a few years ago, and split. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to use other networks that align closely to your preference?

[LoyceV]

I see what you did there. Although I expect the total number of Bitcoin transactions excluding the ones spamming data to be less than the total Litecoin transactions.

Approximately 20% of the total Bitcoin transactions were 100% of the Litecoin total. For this to hold true, more than 680,000 Bitcoin transactions have to be "spam" according to you.

I can't (easily) find hard data, but I've seen many blocks that are for 90% filled with data transactions. I call (almost all of) those spam. In transaction amounts, the small data transactions make up an even larger percentage. So 80% spam transactions seems plausible to me.

But more importantly: I don't want to have to move to altcoins, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. I do have some small amounts for small transactions, but I'd prefer to use Bitcoin for that.

If to accomplish it, you'd have to turn Bitcoin to an altcoin, would it be worth it? Because, that's what you'd do by tinkering with the block size. This risk has already been taken. This solution has already been implemented and tested by many altcoins. This community even had a cultural war a few years ago, and split. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to use other networks that align closely to your preference?

What's "Bitcoin"? I remember blocks being temporarily limited from 30 to 1 MB by Satoshi in the early days, to reduce spam and blockchain growth.
Ever since the creation of altcoins, it looked like they are only created to make the creator rich, by taking market share away from Bitcoin until it's high enough to sell. All that market share could have been Bitcoin. I'm surprised to see you argue that I, a Bitcoin user, should move to some shitcoin, just because some spammer created a shittoken on Bitcoin. I just checked Mempool Goggles: at least 90% is data spam. The Bitcoin users who now switch to some shitcoin won't come back to Bitcoin, and the merchants who gave up accepting Bitcoin because of high fees won't restart doing so when fees drop temporarily.
Bitcoin needs a long-term scaling solution with reliable transaction fees. I hate to say it, but I'm glad my bank doesn't suddenly charge me €50 when I pay at the supermarket.

[BlackHatCoiner]

What's "Bitcoin"? I remember blocks being temporarily limited from 30 to 1 MB by Satoshi in the early days, to reduce spam and blockchain growth.

Satoshi also envisioned the blockchain to grow by 100 GB per day, because that'd equate to "just the size of 12 DVD", completely ignoring the bottleneck in verification. He believed that the blockchain should be accessible only by server farms that generate new coins, everybody else should opt-in to SPV. It's clear to me today that Satoshi wasn't the best figure to see as the leading expert.

I'm surprised to see you argue that I, a Bitcoin user, should move to some shitcoin, just because some spammer created a shittoken on Bitcoin.

But, I'm not suggesting you to migrate because of some spammer. I'm suggesting you to migrate, because Bitcoin does not align with your preferences. Simple as that. The Ordinal spam will inevitably come to an end at some point. Then, we might experience a bull run, and fees may skyrocket for some months. You'll have this to blame then, but the real issue lies with you: what you want has already been implemented and tested for years; it's ready to use. Instead of realizing that you need to change, you expect a network with a well-defined and nonaligned with your preferences roadmap to adapt to your needs.

[LoyceV]

Satoshi also envisioned the blockchain to grow by 100 GB per day, because that'd equate to "just the size of 12 DVD"

That doesn't sound so bad at all:

Long before the network gets anywhere near as large as that, it would be safe
for users to use Simplified Payment Verification (section to check for
double spending, which only requires having the chain of block headers, or
about 12KB per day.  Only people trying to create new coins would need to run
network nodes.  At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the
network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to
specialists with server farms of specialized hardware.  A server farm would
only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with
that one node.
~
Satoshi Nakamoto

completely ignoring the bottleneck in verification. He believed that the blockchain should be accessible only by server farms that generate new coins, everybody else should opt-in to SPV.

Many Bitcoin users, including hardware wallet users, already rely on third party nodes by using a SPV wallet. If I have to choose between 1) a user keeping their coins on an exchange or using custodial LN and 2) a user keeping their Bitcoin in a SPV wallet that relies on several large server farms, the latter sounds more decentralized.

Let's be realistic: there are 18,500 full nodes, and depending on which source you believe, 50 to 219 million Bitcoin owners. There are only 52.5 million funded Bitcoin addresses. Even if we take the lower number of Bitcoin owners, less than 0.05% of them run a full node. If we take the upper number of Bitcoin users, the large majority of them uses a centralized exchange and doesn't own their private keys.

you expect a network with a well-defined and nonaligned with your preferences roadmap to adapt to your needs.

I think a lot of Bitcoin users expect Bitcoin to scale at some point.

[cryptosize]

I hate to say it, but I'm glad my bank doesn't suddenly charge me €50 when I pay at the supermarket.

That's because centralized solutions are more predictable and scalable by definition.

This whole discussion reminds me of BitTorrent vs Rapidshare (do you remember it?) debates back in 2008-2009.

Many people were not happy about torrents having slow speeds due to lack of seeders, so they migrated to Rapidshare for guaranteed high download speeds.

The thing is, Rapidshare doesn't exist anymore, it got shut down.

Asking for predictability (guaranteed low fees/high download speed) from a p2p network won't get you anywhere.

p2p is inherently unpredictable by nature, since nobody controls the network to offer some sort of "guarantee".

[BlackHatCoiner]

That doesn't sound so bad at all

This would be extremely bad. I don't know where to start.

• One mining pool would gain enormous advantage. 100 GB everyday is 700 MB every 10 minutes. Verifying an ECDSA signature takes about 1 millisecond on modern CPU. With just 4 MB block size, there can be about 7000 transactions every 10 minutes. If each has just one ECDSA signature, it takes 7 seconds to verify the block. With 700 MB block size, it'd take 175x as much time; 1225 seconds, which is 20 minutes. The mining pool with the most hashrate would render the rest unprofitable and gain all the hashrate.
• Spam is taken to the next level. People can now embed entire movies on-chain, which can introduce legal problems, and with a few large mining farms owning all the nodes, it'd be much easier to shut down the network.
• There is no fee market competition. All transactions paying 1 satoshi have high-priority, until there are more than 800k transactions unconfirmed within 10 minutes. This renders the system unsustainable over the long-term.

Let's be realistic: there are 18,500 full nodes

Being pedantic here, but there are more than 50,000. The 18,500 are listening nodes.

If I have to choose between 1) a user keeping their coins on an exchange or using custodial LN and 2) a user keeping their Bitcoin in a SPV wallet that relies on several large server farms, the latter sounds more decentralized.

I see what you did there, but here's the difference: In the former, you have the option to use Bitcoin with no trusted third parties. In the latter, you may have self-custody, but you're forced to trust third parties (or realistically, practically forced).

I believe Bitcoin should be accessible with no trust required, and thus, I stand with the former.

I think a lot of Bitcoin users expect Bitcoin to scale at some point.

People expect Bitcoin to scale through second layers. I don't think there are a lot of people aware of Bitcoin's history, believing it'll solve the problem by tinkering with the block size.

[stompix]

Let's look at the closest evidence we have to verify this claim: altcoins.

- Bitcoin Cash is the Bitcoin fork I'd use if I was forbidden from using Bitcoin. Total transactions in the last 24 hours: 14,546. Block size limit: 32 MB, block interval: 10 minutes.
- Total Litecoin transactions in the last 24 hours: 181,694. Block size limit: 1 MB, every 2.5 minutes. (in 10 minutes: 4 MB)
- Total Dogecoin transactions in the last 24 hours: 62,270. Block size limit: 1 MB, once a minute. (in 10 minutes: 10 MB)

Total Bitcoin transactions in the last 24 hours: 862,464. If high on-chain capacity is what the world wants, then we should expect them to have migrated, and do more on-chain transactions there. It's clearly not the case, though.

When you cherry-pick data be careful for that data not to come and bite right back.
The 860k Bitcoin transaction was a fluke! A big one caused by an insane amount of blocks in the last 24 hours, it was 172 on the 25 as you can see we're down to 595k on normal block time!

But let's go back a bit in time, cause you claimed people only care about BTC, and check historical data:


And what do we have here, every time Bitcoin fees rise, Doge alone outperforms Bitcoin.
Proven fact, not opinion, proven fact that people care about fees!

One mining pool would gain enormous advantage. 100 GB everyday is 700 MB every 10 minutes. Verifying an ECDSA signature takes about 1 millisecond on modern CPU. With just 4 MB block size, there can be about 7000 transactions every 10 minutes. If each has just one ECDSA signature, it takes 7 seconds to verify the block. With 700 MB block size, it'd take 175x as much time; 1225 seconds, which is 20 minutes. The mining pool with the most hashrate would render the rest unprofitable and gain all the hashrate.[/li][/list]

Oh, the horror.
First who said anything about 700MB size and more like at most 16MB, so diving that by 30 you got half a minute and let me tell you from he start the math ain't right on that time either.
Wonder how doge managed to get its full 1MB blocks every minute, they must have some sort of much wow chips running their nodes.

But the whole thing about nodes is pure cring materials, so we need 50k nodes with 10TB drives and the last model CPU to keep the network decentralized, which is impossible but in the meantime...
You have 6 million!!! 3KW monsters ASICs worth 2k-3k mining, and that somehow is decentralization?

Oh no, users won't be able to host their nodes, were doomed, meanwhile, the latest miners from whatsminer can't even be plugged in your house if you're on a 20A breaker, not to mention it's $8k a piece and to have 50% of it you need a million!
But somebody please think of the nodesssss!

Who's going to open a LN channel if it costs $50? And another $50 or more to close the channel?

Nobody!

There is a more problematic math at work here, every time Bitcoin grows the amount guarded grows, with Bitcoin at 1 million there is 19 trillion in wealth there

The only "worry" is for the amount being transfered. That's the part that can be replaced in a 51% attack. There's no moment all 19 trillion is at risk at the same time.

The moment your coins that you have bought for two hours suddenly return to the buyer cause somebody has rewritten the chain with empty blocks for the last 4 hours I have a doubt the price will stay the same. But of course, we could go back in time when checks were used and only think a transaction is secure after 6000 not 6 blocks. It's amazing how everything else around gets faster and cheaper, but Bitcoin which was supposed to be revolutionary is somehow stuck in the last decade.


Oh, LE:
https://www.theblock.co/data/on-chain-metrics/bitcoin/runes-transactions
598K Transactions, Rune tx: 382k, non-runes: 214k
Litecoins Transactions last 24h (Number of transactions in blockchain per day)   253,796