Block size limit

[21E14]

What's being done to address the 1MB block size limit? The exp. regression trendlines are at the current limit sometime between 8/'14 and 8/'15 ( http://21e14.com/blocksize/blocksize.html )...

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[bg002h]

It goes up when needed. 'Nuff said.

A payment network that processes little has tokens worth little as well. Hopefully the Bank of America paper has made that plain.

[BurtW]

This as been discussed ad nauseum.  Do a quick search and find your answer in one of the dozens and dozens of threads discussing this very question.

[franky1]

a 1mb per block limit translates to 52gb a year blockchain growth, if every block was filled to the limit.
(or if you want it in transaction amounts 4200 per block (7 per second))

but it has been 5 years and the entire blockchain is a quarter of that. making it 20x un-utilised. thus until more transactions happen, there is no need to change the limit size.(or using the stats from the link this month is 25% filled 75% un-utilised)

if the reason for the OP's question is that some transactions don't get added to  block for hours, its because greedy mining pool owners have code to only accept certain transactions.

imagine it like a Train. it has first class carriages and coach class.. certain train operators only allow first class people onboard, and even if they have cues at the station of coach passengers, and many coach class carriages, they only allow one coach passenger onboard and tell the rest to wait for the next train.

and you can blame luke Jr for that little greedy piece of code.

(analogy explained: first class=TX's with transaction fee's.. Coach=no transaction fee's)

[DeathAndTaxes]

Well it isn't just that franky.  To use your train analogy some mining pools simply use larger trains.  Ironically it is the Eligus pool which uses some of the largest trains possible while many other pools uses trains with only half as many cars.  Some miners simply run with just a locomotive and no cars (no transactions beyond the coinbase reward to the miner).

[cr1776]

The people that run the trains will take some passengers as freeloaders (and everyone eventually) but they won't take everyone for free on the first train since they have bills to pay, including time and fuel for the locomotives.

[bg002h]

Miners focusing in fees is kind if stupid at this point. For the $50 they get in fees they really muck with the user experience of Bitcoin...making the average user unhappy and making the average usefulness of Bitcoin less. The fact that it's the users fault is irrelevant...the token on the network is only as valuable as it is spendable; if it takes forever to spend, it is worth less than a token spendable in 10 mins.

[Gabi]

The problem is being addressed exactly how other problems like transactions malleability and other problems are being addressed: exactly nothing is done until they are forced to.

[Chancellor]

Miners focusing in fees is kind if stupid at this point. For the $50 they get in fees they really muck with the user experience of Bitcoin...making the average user unhappy and making the average usefulness of Bitcoin less.

Some theoretical question. Let's assume I'm a miner. A rich and altruistic one. Then I do not care that much about mined bitcoins and don't care of costs of running my miners. I have some reasonable (but not extreme) hashing power, let's say 500 Ghash/s. Is it technically possible to write mining software only accepting transactions without fees? Would my hashpower help with propagating such transactions?

[cr1776]

Miners focusing in fees is kind if stupid at this point. For the $50 they get in fees they really muck with the user experience of Bitcoin...making the average user unhappy and making the average usefulness of Bitcoin less.

Some theoretical question. Let's assume I'm a miner. A rich and altruistic one. Then I do not care that much about mined bitcoins and don't care of costs of running my miners. I have some reasonable (but not extreme) hashing power, let's say 500 Ghash/s. Is it technically possible to write mining software only accepting transactions without fees? Would my hashpower help with propagating such transactions?

A miner can accept whatever valid transactions they want - from zero or up to the block size limit. Some pools have been generating blocks with no transactions, others in the middle, others larger, close to the limit. Likewise you could change the software to accept any valid transaction only if it had no fees. But 500 Ghash/s won't find many (any?) blocks per year though, you'd need much more than that to make an impact.

With bitcoind you can control the mix between paid and free transactions. Some say the problem with making a huge, completely free block is that you run the slight risk of it becoming an orphan because of slightly longer propagation times as compared to smaller blocks.

[Lauda]

Stop worrying about this. I'm pretty sure that after 4 years we know most of the "flaws" of bitcoin.

[Aswan]

It goes up when needed. 'Nuff said.

Not necessarily.

When more and more transactions occur and blocks get bigger and bigger and often scratch the 1 mb limit, then "transaction space" within a block becomes more valuable. Soon only Transactions with fees will be included and as time passes, only the high fees transactions will be included.
Miners will get those fees so it is in their interest to keep them high by not increasing the block size limit and therefore creating transaction space scarcity.
Since miners are the ones that have a vote in the bitcoin network, the limit might not get raised at all or only in small increments while keeping fees so high that micro payments are out of question.

I'd be interested to hear what you guys have to say about that.

[Lauda]

It goes up when needed. 'Nuff said.

Not necessarily.

When more and more transactions occur and blocks get bigger and bigger and often scratch the 1 mb limit, then "transaction space" within a block becomes more valuable. Soon only Transactions with fees will be included and as time passes, only the high fees transactions will be included.
Miners will get those fees so it is in their interest to keep them high by not increasing the block size limit and therefore creating transaction space scarcity.
Since miners are the ones that have a vote in the bitcoin network, the limit might not get raised at all or only in small increments while keeping fees so high that micro payments are out of question.
I'd be interested to hear what you guys have to say about that.

Search for 'mini-blockchain', such or a similar project should get implemented one day and this would be solved.
There has to be a way to make these transactions consume less space.