Adjustable Blocksize Cap: Why not?

[topcoin360]

While the question of a block size limit increase has been debated a lot, an ABC algorithm that would be used to increase the miner income could benefit to the whole network. This could be combined with a hard cap so the block size limit would vary from (let's say 0.1MB to 8MB) preventing any form of centralisation.

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[aliashraf]

Firstly, it is a compromise and not a scaling solution.

Secondly, it should be implemented in SegWit instead of manipulating the legacy 1 MB block size, for avoiding a hard fork.

[pooya87]

preventing any form of centralisation.

Making the block size a variable is already centralizing it since the decision falls to miners and how they can manipulate it to their own benefit and they can easily do it with zero cost using a simple spam attack. They definitely spammed bitcoin in 2017 and the big pools were also rejecting any low fees to prevent the fees from going down. F2Pool is an example that comes to mind.

[DooMAD]

I've advocated for this idea in the past.  I used to think it was the way forward, but I've got some pretty big doubts about that now.  It sounds good in theory, but once you get down to the finer details, it starts getting quite messy.  Game theory and consensus are pretty big hurdles to overcome.

[CounterEntropy]

While the question of a block size limit increase has been debated a lot, an ABC algorithm that would be used to increase the miner income could benefit to the whole network. This could be combined with a hard cap so the block size limit would vary from (let's say 0.1MB to 8MB) preventing any form of centralisation.

This has been proposed and discussed at the time of scaling debate. Check the following for reference...

1. BIP 105 - Consensus based block size retargeting algorithm

2. BIP 106 - Dynamically Controlled Bitcoin Block Size Max Cap

[topcoin360]

OK I guess I'll be the one bringing new ideas (or maybe not) and we can debate about them..

What if the size limit of the next block would go up if the average transaction fee goes up but down if the amount of transactions goes up. If a miner would try to play the system by filling his block with fake transactions then he would have to mine 2 blocks for the price of one which wouldn't be profitable.

[topcoin360]

Maybe I am but I'm just taking a shot. Btc could go up or down depending on the development of the currency (as any technology I think it must evolve to survive) and I don't see any crypto being used as a collectible item  

I can't understand why we would keep the block size limit to 1MB just to reduce the amount of spams because at the same time we would make the network less efficient for peak periods (huge trade off). Someone will have to come up with a viable solution at some point...

[PrimeNumber7]

I merited your post because I think it is good to discuss these types of ideas, even if they are bad. These discussions could potentially lead to good ideas.

Your suggestion effectively allows the miners to decide the blocksize. It would be trivial and cost-free for the miners to either send many transactions to themselves with an arbitrary transaction fee, or to include fewer transactions than is economically logical. 

[philipma1957]

Fixing btc blocksize is not going to be easy as there are many safe coins to mine and move money.

LTC can move large sums safely and as a bonus  cheaper then Btc.

Doge can move small and medium sums faster and cheaper and safely.

Tether is being used to move wealth quickly and so far safely.

All of them do a decent job.

So btc is much more usable as a store of wealth rather then a quick fast cheaper money mover.

I think that the problem is solved.  Of course btc maximinalist wont agree or be happy with my thoughts.

On the subject.

[topcoin360]

I merited your post because I think it is good to discuss these types of ideas, even if they are bad. These discussions could potentially lead to good ideas.

Ok let's do this

Your suggestion effectively allows the miners to decide the blocksize. It would be trivial and cost-free for the miners to either send many transactions to themselves with an arbitrary transaction fee, or to include fewer transactions than is economically logical.  

Actually, there is the cost of opportunity because miners don't get paid mining their own transactions. Also, I don't see why a miner would purposely raise his own storage cost...

[pooya87]

What if the size limit of the next block would go up if the average transaction fee goes up but down if the amount of transactions goes up. If a miner would try to play the system by filling his block with fake transactions then he would have to mine 2 blocks for the price of one which wouldn't be profitable.

Filling your own block with transactions costs nothing because you are getting the fees of all those transactions in the coinbase transaction of the block they mine (it is like putting money from left pocket into the right one). Not to mention that such an attack could be a collaboration between more than one big miner where they both spam the network to inflate the fees.

I can't understand why we would keep the block size limit to 1MB just to reduce the amount of spams because at the same time we would make the network less efficient for peak periods (huge trade off). Someone will have to come up with a viable solution at some point...

Block size hasn't been 1MB for nearly 4 years now. The block weight has been 4 MB which has translated into average size of about 1.5 MB.
This "cap" is not there to reduce spam, it is there to prevent spam attacks that would cost nothing to perform.
We also don't want to just bump the raw size, we aim to increase the capacity without doing that. For example Schnorr signatures already get rid of some of the useless bytes that for years we've put into each signature. There is also aggregate signature that can reduce the size of transactions with more than one key.

LTC can move large sums safely and as a bonus  cheaper then Btc.
Doge can move small and medium sums faster and cheaper and safely.

That's because they are not used. It is like saying I can speed in this street that nobody else is in but I have to be stuck in traffic in the other street that is the exact copy of this one but it is used by a lot of cars.

Tether is being used to move wealth quickly and so far safely.

Tether is neither quick nor safe. It is a centralized altcoin that is extremely risky to use because it could be shut down at any moment very easily.
If you are happy with centralized tokens pegged to fiat then you can use PayPal. It gives you a token that is also called USD which is pegged with dollar and is fully centralized, fast and as safe as it gets. But the difference is that PayPal is a legitimate company that works within United States and under US law while each PayPal USD token is legitimately backed by USD 1:1 whereas Bitfinex is not.

[topcoin360]

Filling your own block with transactions costs nothing because you are getting the fees of all those transactions in the coinbase transaction of the block they mine (it is like putting money from left pocket into the right one). Not to mention that such an attack could be a collaboration between more than one big miner where they both spam the network to inflate the fees.

I think the problem you're referring to is the centralisation of mining because a miner would need a large portion of the total hashrate to launch this kind of attack and there's not really any system in place to prevent that. And you're actually making my point because I proposed that the block size limit would go up if the average transaction fee goes up which would require more fake transactions to upper the average cost per transaction.

Block size hasn't been 1MB for nearly 4 years now. The block weight has been 4 MB which has translated into average size of about 1.5 MB.
This "cap" is not there to reduce spam, it is there to prevent spam attacks that would cost nothing to perform.
We also don't want to just bump the raw size, we aim to increase the capacity without doing that. For example Schnorr signatures already get rid of some of the useless bytes that for years we've put into each signature. There is also aggregate signature that can reduce the size of transactions with more than one key.

I get it and I think that's fine but since the cost of storage is dimishing and the speed of internet is going up why not increasing the block limit also? And could you explain why a spam attack would magically cost a lot more if the block weight is 4MB or less?

[pooya87]

I get it and I think that's fine but since the cost of storage is dimishing and the speed of internet is going up why not increasing the block limit also?

Storage cost and internet speed are only part of the issue, the other part which is more important is the computation cost, which is the CPU and RAM you need to validate each and every transaction.
With that said I have never been against increasing the block size. Ever since 2017 I've been saying we need to also increase the size alongside everything else we do.

And could you explain why a spam attack would magically cost a lot more if the block weight is 4MB or less?

I emphasized on having the cap (having a maximum size for each block) not on the value of it.
This value has to be close to the needed capacity but higher than it, that way it can ensure that if someone decided to spam the network they go over that capacity and end up creating a fee market that costs them a lot of money to sustain the attack.
4 MB weight has been close to that needed capacity but I believe we have surpassed that for some time now, which is why we keep seeing big fee spikes regularly.

[Wind_FURY]

OP, it isn't that simple. Research the effects of increasing the block size cap on network latency, network security, and how the costs in the network transfers from the miners to the nodes.

The best solution will always go back to off-chain networks.

[GGUL]

For OP.
Your reasoning is correct and based on common sense. If all technologies are improving,then it is necessary and possible to increase the block. There is no reason to freeze the block size.
 
The problem is that the Bitcoin community is mostly zombified. They are sincerely convinced that the block cannot be increased. They have no real reason, but they are convinced of it.
Therefore, they will generate refutations for any proposal to increase the block. They generate such arguments against increasing at a high rate. All of them without proof, just look plausible.
 If you take the time to prove one claim untenable, another will immediately appear. And the number of such pseudo-true statements is not limited.
For example, "spam from miners". This problem is not there, it is just made up. This problem was not present when the blocks were half-empty, this problem is not present when the blocks became full. And there is no evidence of the existence of "spam from miners".

When you doubt the credibility of this argument, there will be arguments in the form of "lack of processor power, RAM, block propagation speed over the network, etc." I emphasize that all these statements are without evidence. And you will have to look for evidence that they are untenable. If you expose these statements, the following will appear: like "increasing the block increases censorship", etc.

How to break through this swamp is not understood.

p/s/ why was the Khaos77 post deleted?

[Pmalek]

Tether is neither quick nor safe. It is a centralized altcoin that is extremely risky to use because it could be shut down at any moment very easily.
If you are happy with centralized tokens pegged to fiat then you can use PayPal. It gives you a token that is also called USD which is pegged with dollar and is fully centralized, fast and as safe as it gets.

Yes, but the money you move through Paypal include significant transaction fees. I think it's 3-5% per transaction, but I don't use it that often to pay attention. Everything you said about Tether is true, but the tokens moved via the Tron network bear almost no withdrawal fees. I am talking about withdrawing from exchanges. Therefore, it gets the job done as philipma1957 said. For now...   

[stompix]

What if the size limit of the next block would go up if the average transaction fee goes up but down if the amount of transactions goes up. If a miner would try to play the system by filling his block with fake transactions then he would have to mine 2 blocks for the price of one which wouldn't be profitable.

Or a coalition of pools will play it the other way around.
They would insert only fees with low transactions into their blocks thus making the next block smaller but if filled correctly would trigger the next block to be larger and they could stuff also higher fees in this, you can't force miners to propagate a block they find if they don't want to. Of course, it will need also quite a bit of luck alongside hashing power but they could still try to game it, this will turn ugly once the fees will be the dominant reward, miners will have an incentive for selfish mining.
In the end, it's normal if you open even the smallest door of opportunity someone will try to make more money than the others.

LTC can move large sums safely and as a bonus  cheaper then Btc.
Doge can move small and medium sums faster and cheaper and safely.

That's because they are not used. It is like saying I can speed in this street that nobody else is in but I have to be stuck in traffic in the other street that is the exact copy of this one but it is used by a lot of cars.

Let' be realistic here, even if they would have the same number of transactions as BTC, doge fees would be cheaper, two cities might have the same time wasted in traffic on average but if we reverse the number of cars one might go to zero time wasted and the other to a complete stop. Nearly all the transactions you see on those chains are exactly because the fees on BTC are too high, if everyone would be using the LN then there would be no reason left for their existence anymore.

[DooMAD]

If all technologies are improving,then it is necessary and possible to increase the block. There is no reason to freeze the block size.

So you're saying the civil war that divided the community happened totally without cause?  There must have been a reason, because I definitely remember being on the "pro-increase" side at the time.  Speaking as a reformed big-blocker, eventually I was persuaded that if there was to be an increase in throughput, it needed to be a moderate one.  Hence I'm satisfied with the compromise SegWit provided.  
 

The problem is that the Bitcoin community is mostly zombified. They are sincerely convinced that the block cannot be increased. They have no real reason, but they are convinced of it.
Therefore, they will generate refutations for any proposal to increase the block. They generate such arguments against increasing at a high rate. All of them without proof, just look plausible.
 If you take the time to prove one claim untenable, another will immediately appear. And the number of such pseudo-true statements is not limited.

I'm sensing you feel somewhat resentful that your arguments weren't received as particularly compelling at the time.  If you want to re-write history from your own perspective, feel free.  I'm not looking to re-tread old ground. But I remember reading enough well-substantiated viewpoints on the matter to change my stance.  Also, you can't argue about the outcome.  Consensus has spoken pretty conclusively.

I'll concede that politisation may have been a factor, though.  There were certainly comments made at the time, some by myself, that the debate was getting rather tribalistic.  You'll struggle to convince me the arguments made against large increases in blocksize were spurious, though.

[topcoin360]

Or a coalition of pools will play it the other way around.
They would insert only fees with low transactions into their blocks thus making the next block smaller but if filled correctly would trigger the next block to be larger and they could stuff also higher fees in this, you can't force miners to propagate a block they find if they don't want to. Of course, it will need also quite a bit of luck alongside hashing power but they could still try to game it, this will turn ugly once the fees will be the dominant reward, miners will have an incentive for selfish mining.
In the end, it's normal if you open even the smallest door of opportunity someone will try to make more money than the others.

What you're suggesting here is risky for the miner (it's like taking a gamble to earn more money). I'd agree that we can take the volume of transactions out of the equation and just use the average transaction fee to calculate the limit on the next block but I don't buy that having an adjustable blocksize cap would make it easier for anyone to "game the system".

In my opinion, the ideal solution is to adjust the blocksize cap in real time, not to fix a limit based on future predictions. To anyone talking about an off chain solution, just so you know the L1 network is the barrier to entry to the L2 network.

[GGUL]

If all technologies are improving,then it is necessary and possible to increase the block. There is no reason to freeze the block size.

So you're saying the civil war that divided the community happened totally without cause?  There must have been a reason, because I definitely remember being on the "pro-increase" side at the time.  

The only reason I see is the reluctance of most Bitcoin developers (not all) increase the block. I do not know the real reasons for this decision. Because all the arguments that the developers gave in favor of such a decision were unconvincing. For me. The majority of society believed them. (I'm not going to rewrite history )

The problem is that the Bitcoin community is mostly zombified. They are sincerely convinced that the block cannot be increased. They have no real reason, but they are convinced of it.
Therefore, they will generate refutations for any proposal to increase the block. They generate such arguments against increasing at a high rate. All of them without proof, just look plausible.
 If you take the time to prove one claim untenable, another will immediately appear. And the number of such pseudo-true statements is not limited.

I'm sensing you feel somewhat resentful that your arguments weren't received as particularly compelling at the time.  If you want to re-write history from your own perspective, feel free.  I'm not looking to re-tread old ground. But I remember reading enough well-substantiated viewpoints on the matter to change my stance.  Also, you can't argue about the outcome.  Consensus has spoken pretty conclusively.

Just because society chose such a consensus does not mean that it was the right decision. It can also mean that someone is very strong in propaganda and manipulation.

I'll concede that politisation may have been a factor, though.  There were certainly comments made at the time, some by myself, that the debate was getting rather tribalistic.  You'll struggle to convince me the arguments made against large increases in blocksize were spurious, though.

If the arguments against increasing the block were convincing, then they should remain the same now. All you have to do is get them out, dust them off, and give them to the public. The fact is that they were ridiculous, and so they remained.

I wonder how a convincing argument convinced you that the block can't be increased? Maybe a "Chinese firewall"?