Yet another chainsize post... Maybe

[andulolika]

Hey everyone, hope this is the right place to post this, feel free to move it to right place if i'm wrong, Mod.

Thru the years this is my second, maybe third thread with my worries regarding chainsize, had this idea thru the years few times but I never remembered it for long enough.

Basicaly after 10 years or even less in cases as ethereum the chain can get to almost problematic sizes, I read and hoped we will eventually get to a better compression/decompression method, which is possible but would make it way more resource consuming to have a node, which isn't really an option.

Well, after 10 years, we could take a snapshot of current balances and most important info and have it in the chain, yet everything that's is considered "old info" would go into the heavily compressed old chain.
I'm proposing a way where we can have fast access to information since it everything will be light, now if you requiere something from the "old chain" You'd have to spend a bit of processing power to decompress the old one, In any case it should be made in such way only in extraordinary ocasions one would need to do that.

Simplified, old data gets super-compressed and light to have, new data just as now yet both still be one chain.

I think main point was never lose old data no matter how insignificant it is, and we could achieve that this way.

I'm a noob I has no idea if any of this would be factible but I would like my ideas to be useful.

[philipma1957]

Okay eth or any chain other then Btc does not belong here.

To deal with chainsize of Btc there is pruning DaveF has talked about it here and there.

I have done testing of chain downloads the last week.

I built a new pc to test times of full size downloads.

My limitations are I have a 200mbps internet connection.

I can download the fullsized btc block chain in four to five hours.

the speeds the download does range from 120mbps  to 168 mbps.

The doge chain never goes past 55mbps on a 100 mbps switch.
and never better then 110 mbps on direct router connection.

I only tested btc and doge as my nvme ssd is 1tb in size.

Pruning the btc chain does speed synching since the data loaded is less.

I estimate the btc blockchain to grow to 1tb in size by 2026-2028 that would be three times its current size.

I think that a two tiered blockchain could be useful.

but you will still need a fullcopy.

I suppose you could do one now on a nvme ssd. then clone to a large hdd. just let it run in the background. on a pc.

[andulolika]

Only used eth as an example as I believe it's chain will grow bigger than bitcoin's.

I think I remember reading pruning has it's limits and it becomes contraproductive after.

I plan on having more nodes for heavier coins (had to erase xmr as 80 gb was too much for my ssd) but I would still like to think a bit ahead.

[philipma1957]

Only used eth as an example as I believe it's chain will grow bigger than bitcoin's.

I think I remember reading pruning has it's limits and it becomes contraproductive after.

I plan on having more nodes for heavier coins (had to erase xmr as 80 gb was too much for my ssd) but I would still like to think a bit ahead.

No worries mods sometimes get quick hook.

I did so much mining I had a lot of spare gear and did a build just to test blockchain size downloads.

A decent pc with:

64gb ram -------------------  185
1tb nvme ssd ---------------  128
plat psu ---------------------   97
1 gb lan on b460m mobo---   97
intel i5  10600t cpu --------- 198
generic case------------------   45

built above pc for 750 + tax around 795

This will load BTC chain in 4-5 hours on a 200mbps connection.   I was able to go to speeds of 185mbps. the limits may be my internet connection.  But to tell the truth all the nodes (10 most of the time). May cause the synch speed issue. As I do not know how fast they feed to me.

I don't feel like paying for quicker internet.

 I can order 200  which I have

 or upgrade to:
 300
 400
 500

With 4 -5 hour full size synch If needed I am happy.
I can also clone the nvme so If I crash I can slap it into another pc.  With a synch done up to July 2020

You are right that this is going to become an issue. The last 3 years Hold as much info as the first 7/8 years.

So in 9 years we will be close to 1tb blockchain.

I will upgrade my nvme from 1tb to 2tb soon maybe I will go to a 4tb as I don't have  worry about filling it.

 I think It would be close to 2040 before we get to 4tb size.

 I will be 83 if I am still around.

I personally can not get a faster connection then 500 to my home.

[pooya87]

Basicaly after 10 years or even less in cases as ethereum the chain can get to almost problematic sizes,

you need to research coins that you want to use as examples more. ETH blockchain surpassed 1 TB a long time ago and it is currently sitting at 4 TB. why do you think nobody has run an ETH full node for years? why do you think we called it centralized?

Well, after 10 years, we could take a snapshot of current balances and most important info and have it in the chain, yet everything that's is considered "old info" would go into the heavily compressed old chain.

back to bitcoin.
your suggestion of "taking a snapshot" has been discussed many times before (example linking the decent reply). basically the problem is that there is no good way of doing it while remaining decentralized.
keep in mind there is no such thing as "balances" in bitcoin, there are only unspent transaction outputs.

the important thing about bitcoin is that it has not been impossible to run and sync a bitcoin full node from zero and it will not be impossible due to the way blockchain grows which is a lot slower then how technology (disk space, internet speed, CPU power,...) grows.
unlike many of the shitcoins, bitcoin devs have thought ahead!

[nutildah]

Basicaly after 10 years or even less in cases as ethereum the chain can get to almost problematic sizes,

you need to research coins that you want to use as examples more. ETH blockchain surpassed 1 TB a long time ago and it is currently sitting at 4 TB. why do you think nobody has run an ETH full node for years? why do you think we called it centralized?

There's about 6,000 Ethereum full nodes currently running; the term you are looking for is "archive node," which indeed requires over 4.5 TB. There's still a handful of those, and even though they are technically not necessary for the network to function (historical chain state data can be derived from full node data), it remains a good example of the problems caused by an inordinate blockchain size.

Which is why I have no problem with Bitcoin sticking to 1 MB block size cap* for however much longer.



*well technically its somewhere around 1.8 MB but whatever.

[pooya87]

There's about 6,000 Ethereum full nodes currently running; the term you are looking for is "archive node,"

a full node by definition is a client that downloads and verifies each and every block from the start to the tip. if that node stores all those blocks then it is an archival full node and if it only stores the most recent blocks then it is a pruned full node.

and if the client does not download the entire blockchain and does not verify everything then it is a light client. that is what all those ethereum clients are.

[nutildah]

a full node by definition is a client that downloads and verifies each and every block from the start to the tip. if that node stores all those blocks then it is an archival full node and if it only stores the most recent blocks then it is a pruned full node.

and if the client does not download the entire blockchain and does not verify everything then it is a light client. that is what all those ethereum clients are.

You're conflating the Bitcoin definition of full node with the Ethereum definition of full node. What you consider to be Ethereum "light clients" don't depend on an "archival full node" in order to function, thus they aren't light clients at all.

This guy derived an archive node from a full node, thus proving "Ethereum full nodes" are actually the same as your definition of a full node:

https://medium.com/@marcandrdumas/are-ethereum-full-nodes-really-full-an-experiment-b77acd086ca7

Regardless, there are Ethereum archival nodes still in operation.

[HeRetiK]

FYI the cap is 4 kWu (4 million weights unit)

Don't you mean 4 thousand weights unit? ie. k as in kilo as in thousand (as opposed to mega as in million)

[LoyceV]

I read and hoped we will eventually get to a better compression/decompression method

I don't expect much from this, and if it takes off only a few percent, it's not significant compared to the expected increase in disk space.

[philipma1957]

It would be that bad as 2028 will have much bigger issue of 1.5625 sized reward.

[LoyceV]

It would be that bad as 2028 will have much bigger issue of 1.5625 sized reward.

Why would that be an issue? It's exactly as Satoshi planned. I see 3 options:

• Bitcoin is worth a lot more, and miners still earn a lot.
• Fees are very high, and miners still earn a lot.
• Miner earnings aren't worth the electricity they consume, some of them quit, difficulty goes down a bit (or goes up less fast), the remaining miners make a good living again, and the Bitcoin network consumes less energy.

[philipma1957]

It would be that bad as 2028 will have much bigger issue of 1.5625 sized reward.

Why would that be an issue? It's exactly as Satoshi planned. I see 3 options:

• Bitcoin is worth a lot more, and miners still earn a lot.
• Fees are very high, and miners still earn a lot.
• Miner earnings aren't worth the electricity they consume, some of them quit, difficulty goes down a bit (or goes up less fast), the remaining miners make a good living again, and the Bitcoin network consumes less energy.

Spell/grammar check simply botched the post.

I was trying to say that chainsized growth will not exceed 1tb  by 2028 and the bigger issue will be rewards go to only 1.5625 btc for mining.

So most won't be worrying about big chain size they will worry about small rewards.

It is pretty easy to build a pc that can do full-sized download of the chain at 180mbps.  it takes 4-5 hours to download it.

If the chain is 3x the size in 2028 same pc can do it in 12-15 hours.

I am sure internet connections will grow faster as time passes.

The speeds I quote are with a 200 mbps connection.

[mikeywith]

Miner earnings aren't worth the electricity they consume, some of them quit, difficulty goes down a bit (or goes up less fast), the remaining miners make a good living again, and the Bitcoin network consumes less energy.

This is the problem, less miners/enegery required to mine bitoin = less security one way or the other, by 2028 when rewards are 1.5625 bitcoin needs to be sitting at about $56,000 so that mining remains as profitable, if price is 50% less by then, then long story short, bitcoin will be 50% easier to centralise.

The speeds I quote are with a 200 mbps connection.

You do release that you live in one of the most developed countries in the world right? 200mbps probably only exists at the core where I live, to get a 6mb with an unlimied quota you need to pay about 20% of the average salary, so most people run on slower and limited packages, with my current connection I can hardly propagate a bitcoin block with 1mb in size, imagine it's 4mb ,32mb! it would most certainly send many people away.

The problem here is the most of the big-blockers think that Moore's Law is something that applies to all fields everywhere on the planet with no exceptions, I  was debating the blocksize issue with someone who told me that they have a 500mbps something when he is the middle of the ocean, and that he could buy a 1TB HDD for a $100 which he claims to be worth just about 5 hours of labor, so he sees no problem in making blocksize unlimited, what he doesn't know is that a $100 is someone else's salary for a month or two of extensive work, so buying a 1TB isn't as easy neither having a 500mbps connection, it's even hard and expensive for many people to run a full node at current hardware prices and blockchain size.

Long story short, as long as we are not utilizing 99% of the current block size for 99% of the time (we are not even close by the way) the current blocksize will do, I don't see blocksize standing in the way of people using bitcoin, proof is: we have a few coins with huge blocksize, some even have unlimited size and they don't have half the transactions and users we have on bitcoin.

[philipma1957]

Yeah most full nodes will end up in top tier internet countries.

Japan
Korea
USA

all have easy peasy to get 100 mbps service

Pretty sure a lot of Europe has fast internet.

For full nodes. to be safely scattered about you need. more then 25 countries with good net service.


Lots of people can afford to run a node in a lot of countries.

found a list. and it is old 2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds

...

 by Akamai Technologies (Q1 2017)

Rank   Country/Territory   Avg. connection speed
(Mb/s)
1    South Korea   28.6
2    Norway   23.5
3    Sweden   22.5
4    Hong Kong   21.9
5     Switzerland   21.7
6    Finland   20.5
7    Singapore   20.3
8    Japan   20.2
9    Denmark   20.1
10    United States   18.7
12    Netherlands   17.4
13    Romania   17.0
14    Czech Republic   16.9
15    United Kingdom   16.9
16    Taiwan   16.9
17    Latvia   16.6
19    Belgium   16.3
20    Canada   16.2
21    Thailand   16.0
22    Ireland   15.6
23    Bulgaria   15.5
24    Spain   15.5
25    Germany   15.3
26    Hungary   14.8...

[HeRetiK]

This is the problem, less miners/enegery required to mine bitoin = less security one way or the other, by 2028 when rewards are 1.5625 bitcoin needs to be sitting at about $56,000 so that mining remains as profitable, if price is 50% less by then, then long story short, bitcoin will be 50% easier to centralise.

Bitcoin has an enormous security overhead though, so even at half the hashrate a majority attack would still be orders of magnitudes more expensive than a similar attack on any of the alts (and even with those relatively "easy" targets majority attacks are surprisingly rare). Accordingly I wouldn't worry that much about hashrate dropping as block subsidy decreases. By 2032 block subsidy will be only secondary to mining fees anyway, so subsequent halvings will have less and less of an impact.

[mikeywith]

Bitcoin has an enormous security overhead though, so even at half the hashrate a majority attack would still be orders of magnitudes more expensive than a similar attack on any of the alts

This is mainly because of the mining proftiblity which has to do with the blockrewards+fees and their value in FIAT, the amount of security is based largely on the mining rewards in $ of any given coin, bitcoin has security overhead because of it's mining profitability and nothing else, if a shitcoin like BCH was to gain value and people are willing to pay $9,000 for it, BCH will have the exact same hashrate, let's do some maths.

BCH has a market cap of 4.2B and a hashrate of 2.8EH , so that's 0.66 Billion dollars worth of hashrate for every billion dollars worth of value, BTC has 173.2B market cap and 115EH that's exactly 0.66 billion dollar worth of hashrate for every billion worth of value.

BTC is 41x more secured than BCH not because people hate Roger and Bitmain, it's because of the simple fact that bitcoin is worth 41x BCH.

Other coins with 5% the market cap of btc have 5% worth of hashrate, remember that miners don't mine the coin they love or believe in, they simply mine the coin that is profitable, and profiblity has to do with rewards and the value of those rewards in fiat.

If bitcoin goes up 100% in price, there will be enough room for double the hashrate, if it goes down 50% there will be 50% less room for the current hashrate (not exactly but more or less), obviously it will also be 50% less worthy of an attack, but it will be easier for someone who isn't doing it for profit, someone like a king or a dictator of some rich country.

By 2032 block subsidy will be only secondary to mining fees anyway,

Exactly, and this is where price becomes a more essential factor of mining secruity/decentralization, when block rewards fall to 0.78BTC in 2032, BTC has to be worth $112,000 in order for the same amount of hashrate to remain profitble, assuming the fees are also 0.78BTC btc can be safely trading at 112k/2 or $56,000, if fees are 7.8BTC price can be $11,200 without effecting the current hashrate, the bet here is that fees go higher in number and value, while price keeps climbing up slow and steady, and I am confident that we will achieve that.

[pooya87]

~

you are focusing too much on an action that is performed only once, aka the initial synchronization. it doesn't matter that much if it takes 4-5 hours or even a couple of days since it would only take 1 couple of days to sync and then it is only download of blocks every 10 min on average. so the more important matter is the keeping up with the network which is mainly downloading new blocks but the node can choose to also relay transactions and have a mempool which can be harder than the initial sync specially during the spam times like 2017.

[HeRetiK]

Bitcoin has an enormous security overhead though, so even at half the hashrate a majority attack would still be orders of magnitudes more expensive than a similar attack on any of the alts

This is mainly because of the mining proftiblity which has to do with the blockrewards+fees and their value in FIAT, the amount of security is based largely on the mining rewards in $ of any given coin, bitcoin has security overhead because of it's mining profitability and nothing else, if a shitcoin like BCH was to gain value and people are willing to pay $9,000 for it, BCH will have the exact same hashrate, let's do some maths.

BCH has a market cap of 4.2B and a hashrate of 2.8EH , so that's 0.66 Billion dollars worth of hashrate for every billion dollars worth of value, BTC has 173.2B market cap and 115EH that's exactly 0.66 billion dollar worth of hashrate for every billion worth of value.

BTC is 41x more secured than BCH not because people hate Roger and Bitmain, it's because of the simple fact that bitcoin is worth 41x BCH.

Other coins with 5% the market cap of btc have 5% worth of hashrate, remember that miners don't mine the coin they love or believe in, they simply mine the coin that is profitable, and profiblity has to do with rewards and the value of those rewards in fiat.

If bitcoin goes up 100% in price, there will be enough room for double the hashrate, if it goes down 50% there will be 50% less room for the current hashrate (not exactly but more or less), obviously it will also be 50% less worthy of an attack, but it will be easier for someone who isn't doing it for profit, someone like a king or a dictator of some rich country.

The point I'm trying to make is that, even assuming no rise in price, Bitcoin can still take a couple more halvings before the hashrate loss would become relevant in terms of security.

Taking the example of BCH, all prices remaining equal and ignoring mining fees, it would take Bitcoin 5 more halvings (41 -> 20 -> 10 -> 5 -> etc) to come down on BCH's security level.

However already the 3rd halving's impact will be greatly diminished due to mining fees becoming the primary source of income, which means that we'll have reached a floor beyond which Bitcoin's security level won't break (assuming mining fees don't diminish due to less usage). Additionally BCH and other forks follow the same halving pattern, so BTC's halvings does not put it at an disadvantage. SHA-256 alts that are not direct blockchain forks of BTC have lost all relevancy and it's highly unlikely that any new promising alt coin project will pick up SHA-256 as their PoW hashing algorithm of choice; so unlike GPU-mined coins BTC will probably never have any competition for hashpower to speak of. (Unless BCH or BSV top BTC's price of course, but... you know) And without mining hardware "on the sidelines" (i.e. mining other coins than the target), there's no hashing power to attack Bitcoin.


However I believe the above to be mostly theoretical, since just like you...

[...] the bet here is that fees go higher in number and value, while price keeps climbing up slow and steady, and I am confident that we will achieve that.

...I'm also confident that Bitcoin's price will continue to off-set halving losses for a while longer.

Which is also why it's critical that 2nd layer infrastructure becomes established by then to keep transmitting BTC affordable.

[pooya87]

~
Which is also why it's critical that 2nd layer infrastructure becomes established by then to keep transmitting BTC affordable.

affordability of transacting bitcoin on any other layers still depends on the main chain fees because the coins have to move from main chain to the other layer first and then be settled on chain again. so there are two transactions in the process and 2 fees involved.