Why did we raise the Blocksize limit?

[mustyoshi]

Why was it raised from 256kb (12.79GB per year max) to the current 1MB block limit at 51GB per year?

Only 4010 blocks have been over 256kb so far... And blocks are usually under 200kb.

[notme]

Why was it raised from 256kb (12.79GB per year max) to the current 1MB block limit at 51GB per year?

Only 4010 blocks have been over 256kb so far... And blocks are usually under 200kb.

256kb was never a limit, just a default setting.  The limit has been 1MB since a limit was created.  The default setting was raised to the full capacity of the network because transaction volumes were starting to bump up against the 256kb limit at certain busy times.

[gmaxwell]

The limit has been 1MB since a limit was created.

This isn't pedantically correct. It was actually lowered to 1MB by satoshi.  I'll leave the code history spelunking as an excercise to the reader.

But correct, there was never a 256k limit. There is a 1MB limit. Also, for the longest time there was a 500k default target (half the limit), which was lowered to the typical block size when the target was made configurable.

[DobZombie]

The limit has been 1MB since a limit was created.

This isn't pedantically correct. It was actually lowered to 1MB by satoshi.  I'll leave the code history spelunking as an excercise to the reader.

But correct, there was never a 256k limit. There is a 1MB limit. Also, for the longest time there was a 500k default target (half the limit), which was lowered to the typical block size when the target was made configurable.

History lesson please

[yaffare]

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/9d2174b6f5f3fac2463c7ebc2dbb9004b3740d23

this is version 0.3.1 rc1

you can find this line here

Code:

static const unsigned int MAX_BLOCK_SIZE = 1000000;

before it was

Code:

static const unsigned int MAX_SIZE = 0x02000000; 

if you convert 2000000 from hex to dec =  33,554,432 bytes = 32MB

also here:
"Because blocksize limit was lowered from 32 MB to 1 MB by Satoshi in early days of Bitcoin."
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=251877.msg2679268#msg2679268

[gmaxwell]

Thats not quite the revision where it changed. It changed in several steps, first the size of blocks it would create was limited, then the rule was changed to limit the actual size after a particular height. Later the old code was removed.

Can the OP please change the subject to something not incorrect like "Why did we raise the default blocksize target?"

[yaffare]

Thats not quite the revision where it changed. It changed in several steps, first the size of blocks it would create was limited,

this is the commit one should people point to, cause this is the first commit with MAX_BLOCK_SIZE introduced

[gmaxwell]

this is the commit one should people point to, cause this is the first commit with MAX_BLOCK_SIZE introduced

However that commit does not reduce the blocksize limit at all. It just lowers the target size for making new blocks.