Bitcoin developers wants to lower blocksize to 300kb to push LN

[thecodebear]

https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/btc-developer-causes-controversy-suggesting-300kb-new-block-size-fork-for-lightning-network/

A bitcoin developer actually wants to LOWER !!!!  the blocksize to under a third its current size in order to try to artificially force people to adopt the still not yet ready LN by making bitcoin worse.


Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people in the crypto world?!?

Discuss.

[1713455073]

1713455073

[NeuroticFish]

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people in the crypto world?!?

Nothing. People are free to discuss things and free to have ideas. If the consensus will accept them... that's a more complicated story.

However, it's an old idea that came now back to life and it has another form now, not 300k. More exactly:

So Luke's new proposal is actually a way to soft-fork to 600k weight units, which is not at all the same as 300kB.

That's truly bizarre as an idea, apologies to Luke. That would mean keeping the base size at 1MB, and only being able to use 600kB within that base limit. The segwit discount would still reduce fees for segwit tx's, but the incentive to use segwit tx's as a way to boost capacity would disappear if the base size (1MB) was higher than the weigh limit (600kWU). Don't see the rationale for that at all.

From what I see, there will be no consensus for that, but it is, however an interesting read. Just go to that thread (but please let the devs discuss, since it's a Dev & Tech thread).

[STOChris]

well, it makes sense from a decentralization perspective.... not from user perspective though

[mk4]

It's not as bad as what you think it is.

Luke DashJr pretty much prefers to prioritize decentralization(people running full nodes instead of your typical software wallets) over transaction speed/cost. With lower blocksizes, transaction fees on the main chain can potentially go higher, while running a full node would cost you significantly less memory. The goal is pretty much to push low-cost transactions to layer 2 solutions like LN.

Is this a good choice? Maybe, maybe not. It's heavily heavily debatable.

[gentlemand]

Discussion of sort here too - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5109169.0

This has long been a pet of his.

What's more comical is that it's now been appropriated by people who've projectile shat their credibility out the window on the Bcashes and others and see it as a way to upend BTC in the opposite direction this time - https://twitter.com/VinnyLingham/status/1095058871788261377

We're all big blockers now and it's BAD.

[pawanjain]

Well if the idea is to force people to adopt to the Lightning Network then I would say that the idea is not bad but since the Lightning network is not ready yet, I wouldn't consider to implement this idea.
The Lightning network  should be ready to implement to the real world. If it would be so beneficial then people would adopt it anyway to lower their transaction fees and paying for micro transactions.
But if the LN is not so beneficial then even lowering the block size wouldn't make people to adopt it. They would rather move to an altcoin.
We will get to know how things turn out to be for the Lightning network once it is fully established.

[thecodebear]

It's not as bad as what you think it is.

Luke DashJr pretty much prefers to prioritize decentralization(people running full nodes instead of your typical software wallets) over transaction speed/cost. With lower blocksizes, transaction fees on the main chain can potentially go higher, while running a full node would cost you significantly less memory. The goal is pretty much to push low-cost transactions to layer 2 solutions like LN.

Is this a good choice? Maybe, maybe not. It's heavily heavily debatable.

Well then in the goal of decentralization they should just let only one transaction occur every block. Then it could be soooo decentralized right!?

Seriously the logic doesn't make sense: let's hurt bitcoin scaling in order to force people to adopt LN, when the whole point of LN is to help Bitcoin scale. To artificially make bitcoin WORSE in order to force a solution that isn't ready, and will naturally be adopted when its ready and bitcoin can no longer scale to meet demand, is about the dumbest thing I can imagine. If anything the blocksize/blockweight should be increased so that MORE people can join the LN before bitcoin starts shuddering to a halt again on the next bitcoin boom in a couple years.

Decreasing blocksize not only hurts bitcoin, it hurts LN as well! It makes LN less usable because the ability to use the LN (open up channels, close channels, add funds to channels) still relies on bitcoins on-chain tx capacity! Decreasing blocksize hobbles both bitcoin and LN in an effort to force people to use a technology that isn't ready yet and isn't needed yet.

[franky1]

Decreasing blocksize not only hurts bitcoin, it hurts LN as well! It makes LN less usable because the ability to use the LN (open up channels, close channels, add funds to channels) still relies on bitcoins on-chain tx capacity! Decreasing blocksize hobbles both bitcoin and LN in an effort to force people to use a technology that isn't ready yet and isn't needed yet.

LN is a separat network for multiple coins.
it is not a bitcoin feature.
the secret is in what does N stand for.
its not an exclusive feature to make bitcoin more unique than other coins. its something other coins will have access to aswell

LN was not created to fit bitcoin needs
bitcoin was altered to fit LN's needs.(so was litecoin, vertcoin and others)

as analogies go LN is better to be called thunderdome(mad max)
'2 may enter 1 may leave'
(funds are locked into counterparty controled multisigs(2 may enter))
(channels only really close when one counterparty has run out of funds(1 may leave))

bitcoiners lock up their bitcoins. other users lock up their litecoins, vertcoins.
people transact using unconfirmed 12 decimal tokens with other people that need to be online to accept payment(2flaws)

and in the end if bitcoins network is bottlenecked due to lack of blockspace. and also fee's are high.
those that want to exit the 12 decimal token payment system and try to unlock independent 8 decimal true value, end up choosing the cheaper fee, faster confirm, more accessible altcoins. or staying in the vaulted system(research factories)

meanwhile LN is not a blockchain, not as decentralised, not immutable, no guarantee of confirmation at settle. and other flaws that devs happily admit to
https://youtu.be/8lMLo-7yF5k?t=570

do you really think bitcoin would retain its few $k market price if people are selling them for altcoins.
do you really think bitcoin would retain its few $k market price if no one is retaining bitcoin but prefering altcoins

taking the "burden" off the network.. is a lame excuse for LN. a "burden" created by devs by halting BITCOIN scaling

and for those that want to continue to think LN payments are true bitcoin payments.
write someone a cheque. sign it and hand it to them. let them hold it for a month and pretend you paid them and its all job done.
then watch when they try to settle the cheque and it does not clear(bitcoin doesnt confirm to a blockchain).. i guarantee you that you still owe that person money.. you cannot say that you dont owe that person anything.
LN is an IOU system until the funds are confirmed.
much like zero confirms. its not a real payment until its confirmed

[squatter]

https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/btc-developer-causes-controversy-suggesting-300kb-new-block-size-fork-for-lightning-network/

A bitcoin developer actually wants to LOWER !!!!  the blocksize to under a third its current size in order to try to artificially force people to adopt the still not yet ready LN by making bitcoin worse.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people in the crypto world?!?

Discuss.

Luke has been pushing the idea of lowering the block size limit for years and years. He's never been able to garner much support from anyone -- other Core developers, the community, or anyone else. Nothing has changed this time. The articles cite two supporters of the idea: BitcoinErrorLog, a social media personality, and Vinny Lingham, who doesn't really support the idea at all and was just joking.

I would expect this discussion to quickly fade away just like it did last time.

[figmentofmyass]

it's not "bitcoin developers" plural, but singular.

this proposal isn't gonna gain any traction within bitcoin core. here's greg maxwell earlier today putting that idea to rest:

In any case, I showed this thread to other developers and the response was uniformly a big wtf.

this is just luke jr being a wingnut---not the first time and not the last time.

[thecodebear]

it's not "bitcoin developers" plural, but singular.

this proposal isn't gonna gain any traction within bitcoin core. here's greg maxwell earlier today putting that idea to rest:

In any case, I showed this thread to other developers and the response was uniformly a big wtf.

this is just luke jr being a wingnut---not the first time and not the last time.

yeah i mean its not like i thought it would ever gain traction, since its the opposite of the direction bitcoin needs to be moving. I'm just shocked that someone could even come up with that stupid of an idea and actually promote it.

[evanescence]

I hated the idea of not doubling the block size in 2017 which is why I have sympathy for the cash fork.
But now that there are two clearly defined competing visions for the protocol, 300k is a necessary step towards the BTC vision. The actual GOAL is high fees and everyone using LN instead - dropping block size will definitely speed up the process. There's no time to waste in crypto.
And although I disagreed in 2017 I wish LN and its supporters best of luck, I hope they succeed.

[squatter]

I hated the idea of not doubling the block size in 2017 which is why I have sympathy for the cash fork.
But now that there are two clearly defined competing visions for the protocol, 300k is a necessary step towards the BTC vision. The actual GOAL is high fees and everyone using LN instead - dropping block size will definitely speed up the process.

I think fees should rise over time given Bitcoin's incentive design, but I don't see any good reasons to lower the block weight limit. The fee market is working fine and fees will rise when usage starts spiking again.

We wouldn't gain much by lowering the limit. Block propagation delays aren't a major problem right now. Things like FIBRE have resulted in minimal orphan rates. As for initial sync time, it's too late for a size reduction to do much at this point. It would be many years too late to have much effect.

[gentlemand]

As for initial sync time, it's too late for a size reduction to do much at this point. It would be many years too late to have much effect.

Aye. If you halved or more the rate at which the chain is growing it's still going to be a 99% turn off to most. You'd have to be a very specific person to find 350gb fine and 500gb not. At present it would probably take my connection about 60-70 hours to download it. No idea about syncing but that seems to be the one that bothers more people.

[thecodebear]

I hated the idea of not doubling the block size in 2017 which is why I have sympathy for the cash fork.
But now that there are two clearly defined competing visions for the protocol, 300k is a necessary step towards the BTC vision. The actual GOAL is high fees and everyone using LN instead - dropping block size will definitely speed up the process. There's no time to waste in crypto.
And although I disagreed in 2017 I wish LN and its supporters best of luck, I hope they succeed.

uhh you don't understand what the goal is at all. Or I guess more likely you are just trolling. God I hope you are trolling.

In no world is the goal to have high fees. The goal is to handle lots of transactions and have the mining incentive profitable enough to secure the network. There is no goal of high fees, that is absurd. There WILL be VERY high fees on any decentralized blockchain that sees even a hint of mass adoption, because decentralized blockchains can't handle anything near mass adoption. Which is why LN is needed. LN is not needed so that we can artificially create high fees by making bitcoin LESS capable that it currently is (and has always been) thus making LN be needed earlier. That's like saying: "Electric cars are the future, let's start intentionally making gas cars much worse than they are in order to force people to buy electric cars even though they aren't ready at mass market prices".

The goal is scalability and that will take the LN in conjunction with on-chain scaling to be achieved. On-chain shrinking is the opposite of the goal.

[thecodebear]

As for initial sync time, it's too late for a size reduction to do much at this point. It would be many years too late to have much effect.

Aye. If you halved or more the rate at which the chain is growing it's still going to be a 99% turn off to most. You'd have to be a very specific person to find 350gb fine and 500gb not. At present it would probably take my connection about 60-70 hours to download it. No idea about syncing but that seems to be the one that bothers more people.

Is pruning a viable option in the future? I mean eventually the blockchain is gonna be multiple terabytes and continuing to grow. At some point its gonna need to start pruning old transactions. Even with increased network speeds and cheaper and larger hard drives pruning is gonna be needed at some point. There's no reason to keep decades of transaction data when 95+% of it isn't needed.

[squatter]

As for initial sync time, it's too late for a size reduction to do much at this point. It would be many years too late to have much effect.

Aye. If you halved or more the rate at which the chain is growing it's still going to be a 99% turn off to most. You'd have to be a very specific person to find 350gb fine and 500gb not. At present it would probably take my connection about 60-70 hours to download it. No idea about syncing but that seems to be the one that bothers more people.

As I understand, the biggest hurdle for most people with bootstrapping a node isn't download bandwidth but hardware/computing limitations for verifying blocks and updating the UTXO set.

That's why things like Libsecp256k1 seem so important, and why this soft limit idea just seems like a kludge by comparison. Optimizing bootstrapping inefficiency seems like a better route than arbitrarily adding new throughput limits that will just slow down the damage slightly and linearly.

[mk4]

*snip*

Like I said, this is a hugely debatable topic. I myself haven't decided if I am really for this or not, but I'm leaning significantly more against the "no" side.

Based on the past tweets of Luke DashJr, he's always been a person that heavily prefers decentralization than scalability. Just like some bitcoin devs, he's leaning a lot more on the "big transactions on layer 1, smaller transactions on layer 2". I would somewhat agree on that, if only LN was ready. And yes like you said, it isn't really ready yet. His proposed solution is a temporary blocksize decrease by the way; but yea, I'm still not 100% decided.

[thecodebear]

*snip*

Like I said, this is a hugely debatable topic. I myself haven't decided if I am really for this or not, but I'm leaning significantly more against the "no" side.

Based on the past tweets of Luke DashJr, he's always been a person that heavily prefers decentralization than scalability. Just like some bitcoin devs, he's leaning a lot more on the "big transactions on layer 1, smaller transactions on layer 2". I would somewhat agree on that, if only LN was ready. And yes like you said, it isn't really ready yet. His proposed solution is a temporary blocksize decrease by the way; but yea, I'm still not 100% decided.

Is it debated?? This is the first time I've ever heard of this idea of decreasing the blocksize. Sounds like its just this one guy who happens to be a bitcoin dev who has this absurd idea. Pretty sure its not close to a hugely debated topic outside of this one guy's mind.

Anyway it doesn't really matter. Nobody would accept this and other bitcoin devs have already called the idea lunacy essentially, which is what it is.

[mk4]

Is it debated?? This is the first time I've ever heard of this idea of decreasing the blocksize. Sounds like its just this one guy who happens to be a bitcoin dev who has this absurd idea. Pretty sure its not close to a hugely debated topic outside of this one guy's mind.

What I meant by saying the topic being debatable is that the topic is very arguable; because though I'm for this blocksize decrease like I said(because I don't think a blocksize decrease is going to get people to run full nodes anyway), the sort of proposal is not 100% nonsense. I wasn't saying that it was literally debated. Focusing on decentralization is good, but this decrease is a little bit too much that could hurdle adoption.