Please raise the block size limit

[Fork_da_dork]

I think we need to encourage more use of the ledger. What are we doing if we're not utilizing the ledger??? 1 megabyte limit is so tiny! It might've been good in 2001, but we're in 2019 now...

[1715407546]

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[jackg]

Including the witness, it is already bigger...

It's rare now that a block gets filled and even rarer if that continues for more than 24 hours.

Most transactions are 1 sat per byte because we don't get free transactions anymore. https://bitcoinfees.earn.com

[squatter]

I think we need to encourage more use of the ledger. What are we doing if we're not utilizing the ledger??? 1 megabyte limit is so tiny! It might've been good in 2001, but we're in 2019 now...

Did I walk into a time warp back to 2015? What a throwback! I thought this was a necro-post at first.

Get with the times, OP. The 1 MB block size limit is no more. It's now a 4 MB block weight limit, ever since Segwit was activated in 2017:

Is SegWit a block size increase?
Yes! Segregated witness replaces the block size limit with a new block weight limit, counting each byte of witness data as 1 unit of weight and UTXO transaction data as 4 units; as a result, the maximum size of a block becomes just under 4 MB.

Source: https://segwit.org/is-segwit-a-block-size-increase-705df6a8731d

The limit will probably be increased further some years down the road, but there's really no urgency about it. I recently made a bunch of transactions where I paid only 1 satoshi/byte -- that's less than $0.01 per transaction. Worst comes to worst, people will just need to pay higher fees.

[Fork_da_dork]

Sorry, I may be a bit noob here, but wasn't it urgent in 2017? I recall that transaction fees skyrocketed... Seems to me that it could've used with a few more MB then. What would've been the big deal to have sort of an soft cap/hard cap sort of thing? Surely 1mb is unreasonably small?

By my calculations, 1 year of full 1mb blocks would be 52.5gb of chain growth. At that rate, it would take ~20 years to fill up my 1 TB SSD... that's nuts! I also live in an area with good internet and I can download at 100mbps, so it would only take me a few minutes to download it.

I just don't understand why it's kept so small? I see HUGE industrial scale mining operations throwing everything they have at such a stunted network... I just don't understand, sorry. I am not trying to FUD or whatever, I am honestly wanting answers.

Also I am not sure if this Lightning Network thing is going to be the saving grace we're all waiting for. Can someone explain to me how lightning network is supposed to fix everything? I have read a bit about it, but I am left with more questions than answers! I have a few below... but there are so many more that I have, some technical but mostly philosophical... I am trying to imagine what things look like in 10, 20 or even 50 years from now, with the expectation that the Bitcoin network becomes the only one that everyone is on (in one form or another).

1. How can you use lightning network when you're offline?
2. It looks like the most efficient evolution is a network where everyone connects with only a few, big, stable nodes?
3. What happens if everyone wants to get their bitcoin out of the network at the same time?
4. What happens if the big nodes decide to just go offline??
5. If it doesn't end up being the hub/spoke type network i mentioned in 2), would there be issues with routing or are there ideas on how to make routing a non issue? (appreciate some learning materials on this if anyone has them).
6. If the Lightning Network ends up being what everyone uses, who will use the main network? Also, does that mean that mining might be impacted?
7. If block rewards keep reducing but transaction volumes don't increase, will that impact mining? Or is the idea that fees will high enough to pay miners? Does this also assume that the value of Bitcoin must be high?

I also started thinking the other day about what it means to have my bitcoin locked into a lightning channel... is there some sort of asset conversion taking place? To me it seems like a core feature of my bitcoin is temporarily removed (the right to pay a miner to inscribe something on the ledger). I went further to imagine that, perhaps I cannot afford the fee to bring back that feature of my bitcoin, so I am essentially left with an IOU that can never be claimed... which is scary to think about. I am sure that that isn't possible though.

Anyway, I'd really appreciate some thoughts from someone that has all of this stuff worked out so I can understand it more and perhaps even get my own lightning node and start fooling around!!

Cheers

[jackg]

Based on my understanding of the lightning network it's a smart contract implementation of Bitcoin using multisig.

If nodes go offline, you get your money back at least when you take yours offline and cancel the contract.

That's not the case, a lot of small nodes to connect to imo seems a lot better. Other than for reducing fees but why wouldn't you connect to people directly with a new channel if you can.

3 --> it's not a feactioanl reserve system, they can do that, your coins aren't gone.
6. Me! I hate smart contracts . It's a food job they're not coming to the mainnet.

You should try and send as many inputs in a transaction as possible to try to keep your fees low. I do that.

I'd hope to see a lightning client on phones someday. My phone has 400gb of storage so it can easily store the blockchain..

The downloading the blockchain is the easy bit. Building the utxo chainsrate directory and validating the block is what takes so long.

As I understand it, transactions on the lightning network get pushed to the blockchain as they're signed.

[ABCbits]

I'm not expert or fans of LN so i can't answer all question

2. It looks like the most efficient evolution is a network where everyone connects with only a few, big, stable nodes?

On LN? Yes & it already happen naturally as merchant/seller usually become "big" nodes.

3. What happens if everyone wants to get their bitcoin out of the network at the same time?

If you meant LN network, then main-chain will be flooded with transaction about closing LN channel

4. What happens if the big nodes decide to just go offline??

There's no thing such as big or small nodes. If some nodes are offline, bitcoin network will run just fine.

But if you're talking about LN nodes, then user funds are locked for some times and there are 2 possibility with transaction routing :
1. User simply route their transaction through another nodes/channel
2. User is forced to make new channel

6. If the Lightning Network ends up being what everyone uses, who will use the main network? Also, does that mean that mining might be impacted?

You still need main network even if everyone use LN. You still need to create on-chain transaction to open and close LN channel.

7. If block rewards keep reducing but transaction volumes don't increase, will that impact mining? Or is the idea that fees will high enough to pay miners? Does this also assume that the value of Bitcoin must be high?

The scenario you mentioned is possible, but if both don't happen then mining difficulty will drop when block rewards decreased

[figmentofmyass]

Sorry, I may be a bit noob here, but wasn't it urgent in 2017? I recall that transaction fees skyrocketed... Seems to me that it could've used with a few more MB then. What would've been the big deal to have sort of an soft cap/hard cap sort of thing? Surely 1mb is unreasonably small?

it's a complex issue, really. bigger blocks increase bandwidth requirements for nodes, encouraging node operators to shut down. more importantly, bigger blocks increase block propagation times among miners. this encourages increased orphaning, which disproportionately affects smaller miners and thus encourages mining centralization (because miners can sidestep network latency limitations that way). here's some good discussion about the issue: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/42126/do-larger-blocks-make-it-harder-for-smaller-miners-to-compete-why/42148#42148

it's also not just about technological limitations. in order for bitcoin to have a limited supply, it was designed such that miner fee revenue would replace the initial mining subsidy we currently have. the block size limit (by encouraging full blocks) is the only way to keep fees from approaching zero. if everyone can send unlimited transactions for next to nothing, there's no incentive for miners to secure the network.

By my calculations, 1 year of full 1mb blocks would be 52.5gb of chain growth. At that rate, it would take ~20 years to fill up my 1 TB SSD... that's nuts! I also live in an area with good internet and I can download at 100mbps, so it would only take me a few minutes to download it.

storage really isn't the primary bottleneck. network latency is the biggest problem, followed by upload bandwidth limitations.

although it's good to keep in mind: we don't want to engineer for the best case scenario with plans to max out average or above-average hardware. by and large, people will not buy dedicated hardware just to run a bitcoin node. most people are only willing to dedicate a portion of their resources (storage space/CPU/upload bandwidth) to bitcoin. if running it starts eating too many resources, they'll just shut it down.

[Lauda]

1. How can you use lightning network when you're offline?

The same way that you'd use Bitcoin. Keep the important channel(s) open indefinitely.

2. It looks like the most efficient evolution is a network where everyone connects with only a few, big, stable nodes?

Yes, but not necessary.

3. What happens if everyone wants to get their bitcoin out of the network at the same time?

What happens if everyone wants to move their Bitcoin right now? This is a useless appeal to the extreme. Nothing unpredictable happens.

4. What happens if the big nodes decide to just go offline??

Nothing. Channels can be closed (there are timeouts anyways).

5. If it doesn't end up being the hub/spoke type network i mentioned in 2), would there be issues with routing or are there ideas on how to make routing a non issue? (appreciate some learning materials on this if anyone has them).

Routing issues are exaggarated. If there is no route, then make another channel closer to the recipient.

6. If the Lightning Network ends up being what everyone uses, who will use the main network? Also, does that mean that mining might be impacted?

LN for smaller transactions where you need less security; main chain for large ones.

7. If block rewards keep reducing but transaction volumes don't increase, will that impact mining?

No.

Or is the idea that fees will high enough to pay miners?

Correct.

Does this also assume that the value of Bitcoin must be high?

No, but given the deflationary nature of it that is unavoidable as long as there is any growth per year at all.

I also started thinking the other day about what it means to have my bitcoin locked into a lightning channel... is there some sort of asset conversion taking place? To me it seems like a core feature of my bitcoin is temporarily removed (the right to pay a miner to inscribe something on the ledger). I went further to imagine that, perhaps I cannot afford the fee to bring back that feature of my bitcoin, so I am essentially left with an IOU that can never be claimed... which is scary to think about. I am sure that that isn't possible though.

No. Stop reading kool-aid propaganda. Anything you lock up into a LN channel is BITCOIN that you OWN.

By my calculations, 1 year of full 1mb blocks would be 52.5gb of chain growth. At that rate, it would take ~20 years to fill up my 1 TB SSD... that's nuts! I also live in an area with good internet and I can download at 100mbps, so it would only take me a few minutes to download it.

storage really isn't the primary bottleneck. network latency is the biggest problem, followed by upload bandwidth limitations.

although it's good to keep in mind: we don't want to engineer for the best case scenario with plans to max out average or above-average hardware. by and large, people will not buy dedicated hardware just to run a bitcoin node. most people are only willing to dedicate a portion of their resources (storage space/CPU/upload bandwidth) to bitcoin. if running it starts eating too many resources, they'll just shut it down.

@Fork_da_dork: Try running a full sync on ETH using your current system, and I'm talking about the kind that includes all the states not the fast-sync bullshit that they've added. The chain is over 1 TB in size. Ping me back after a week or two once you've given up. Is this what you want for Bitcoin?

[jackg]

@forkda, the other issue with segwit last year was that a lit of us were waiting to update our wallet.dats and wanted to see segwit in use before it was greatly adopted. A lot of exchanges weren't using segwit and they make a lot of the transactions I think it's fair to say.

[Kakmakr]

The Lightning Network are not going to fix all the problems, but it will take most of the small micro payments off-chain that are clogging the Blockchain. Second layer applications will be the best scaling solution, because it will reduce the size of the Blockchain and it is near instant tx confirmations.

There are currently so much propaganda and shills out there, that it becomes difficult for people to filter the truth from the Fud, when it comes to the Lightning Network. <They know this technology is the competition killer>