Bitcoin 20MB Fork

[davout]

It's the fork that Satoshi long wanted. So you're implying he had been planning to his attack his own creation.

No. I'm stating, plainly and simply, that nobody gives the slightest fuck about what Satoshi is assumed to have meant.
If he really feels strongly about this he knows how to use GPG and let us know.
In other words, you have a brain, use it. You loved daddy very much, we all did, but now he's gone, and like all daddies, he wasn't always right about everything all the time.

Past behaviour is no guarantee of future behaviour

Here you have it.

A dangerous scarcity experiment

Hah. I kinda like this one, imma use it to refer to Bitcoin from now on.

[DooMAD]

- As the transaction rate increases, fewer and fewer people are 'peers' (any more than a debit-card user is a 'peer' in the SWIFT system when they get cash from a machine.)  The more they throw up their hands and just use Multibit or Blockchain.info, the less they know or care about 'P2P' and decentralization.

 - Separately, on a sufficiently large timeline (months to years) nobody can mine in the black unless they can subsidize their income by monetizing alternate revenue streams.  Mostly user intelligence data would be my guess.  This could be for their own use if they are giants, or more likely, by selling data to giants.  This promotes the 'specialization' that Mike eludes to since it is only realistic with high-value deployments.  (When you start to see 'cash back for using bitcoin' that is one gift horse you probably should inspect the mouth of...and it would not be a bad idea now given the subsidies that users are currently receiving.)

 - The more trinket-buying which is possible by the sheep using Multibit, the more corporate entities like TigerDirect will jump on board.

 - Corporate entities and large mining deployments when faced with punitive actions for not following regulations will have no realistic options but to tow the line.  If the law says 'comply with Bitcoin Licence requirements', that's what they'll do (though retailer types could just bow out at that point.)  It would be a logical system design for a small number of specialist outfits such as 'CoinValidation' to operate registry and validation (color-listing) services so their customers (miners and retailers) can just plug in to their API.  With a charter from state, business will be forced to their door.  That seals the loss of fungibility I mentioned.

I suspect the people who really understand the ecosystem on a wholistic level will have a higher percentage of these unusual types, and in distributed-crypto-currency-land an unusual individual may have an even greater value ratio.  Thus, I don't really care all that much about the numbers of foot soldiers in a boots-on-the-ground numeric.

Indeed, the idiots in the Bitcoin ecosystem today are numerous and they are much more of a liability than they are an asset.  Their job is done.  Disposing of them (as native Bitcoin core users) is yet another reason to look forward to a fork war.

Firstly I'd like to say that I appreciate someone from the anti-fork side presenting a reasoned case, so thank you.  If the others had conducted themselves in this manner, perhaps I'd be more interested in listening to them.

Ultimately it sounds as though your concern is that increased adoption and scalability can't happen in any beneficial way unless a significant proportion of Bitcoin's users understand the inner workings and run full nodes.  Sadly I have to say that, fork or otherwise, I don't think that's ever going to happen.  Regardless of the block size, I suspect a majority will always prefer a lightweight client.  While many of us are here because we're intrigued by the ideals of decentralisation, most of Bitcoin's potential future users may not be interested in that and will just want something that works and is easy to use.  While it's clear many in this thread would say it's best not to entertain such a lack of understanding (and I'm one of those who generally tries to discourage the use of web wallets, so I do sympathise), the question you have to ask is to what extreme do you take it?  If your chosen fork only has the technically-minded "power users" (for lack of a better phrase), then you're only going to be sending your transactions amongst yourselves.  For an ecosystem to truly thrive, I'm afraid to say you'll need at least some "idiots" for the sake of network effects.  It's a simple fact of life that not everyone will care enough to be fully educated about this stuff.  This would bring me back to the point I made in the other "fork off" thread about elitism generally not being helpful to the survival of the currency.

The trade off will be, if we carry on without change and start to regularly hit the block size limit and unconfirmed transactions start to pile up, the users who don't feel as strongly about decentralisation will change to a system that confirms their transaction first.  If we start haemorrhaging users, then the reputation of the network itself could suffer and the general opinion could propagate that Bitcoin is slow and doesn't scale well enough.  If the only people left still transacting are the ones who weren't prepared to compromise because of concerns over centralisation, however justified they might seem, then things could get pretty bleak.  To me, that's a more pressing concern than big business taking over and destroying fungibility.  

Most of the pro-fork camp aren't oblivious to the fact that we'll be making compromises too.  But scenarios about increased centralisation aren't enough to convince me that we shouldn't be raising this limit.  And in the event of such fungibility scenarios becoming likely, I'm pretty sure we'd all be rallying to fight against it.

[Muuurrrrica!]

Dumb post by someone who couldn't even bother to read the Bitcoin Whitepaper.  Here's a snippet for the uninformed.

"
Long before the network gets anywhere near as large as that, it would be safe for users to use Simplified Payment Verification (section Cool to check for double spending, which only requires having the chain of block headers, or about 12KB per day. Only people trying to create new coins would need to run network nodes. At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to specialists with server farms of specialized hardware. A server farm would only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with that one node.

The bandwidth might not be as prohibitive as you think. A typical transaction would be about 400 bytes (ECC is nicely compact). Each transaction has to be broadcast twice, so lets say 1KB per transaction. Visa processed 37 billion transactions in FY2008, or an average of 100 million transactions per day. That many transactions would take 100GB of bandwidth, or the size of 12 DVD or 2 HD quality movies, or about $18 worth of bandwidth at current prices.
If the network were to get that big, it would take several years, and by then, sending 2 HD movies over the Internet would probably not seem like a big deal.

Satoshi Nakamoto
"

Important parts are highlighted.
Nowhere did satoshi say to raise blocklimit ahead of demand 20-fold.

[Muuurrrrica!]

A dangerous scarcity experiment

Hah. I kinda like this one, imma use it to refer to Bitcoin from now on.

pahaha. I just spewed my coffee over the screen. lmao.

[amincd]

No. I'm stating, plainly and simply, that nobody gives the slightest fuck about what Satoshi is assumed to have meant.

First, there is no "assumed to have meant". He was clearly against a permanent 1 MB restriction.

This is what you claimed:

This particular fork advocating eternal blockchain growth and never-full blocks should indeed be seen as an attack. Check my registration date.

What I pointed out:

It's the fork that Satoshi long wanted. So you're implying he had been planning to his attack his own creation.

Your response:

nobody gives the slightest fuck about what Satoshi is assumed to have meant. ...  You loved daddy very much, we all did, but now he's gone,

Which is a change of subject, and deflection of my point.

To reiterate, and keep the discussion on point: your argument implies that those who want to fulfill the plan set out by the creator of Bitcoin are attacking Bitcoin. This is absurd. There's no more to be said about this absurd line of argumentation.

Past behaviour is no guarantee of future behaviour

Here you have it.

Naturally, there are no guarantees about the future.

Your concern seems to be:

"If we raise the limit, average transaction fees will plummet, network security will suffer, and Bitcoin will be worse off as a result"

My counter is:

"If we don't raise the limit, average transaction fees will increase, users will leave Bitcoin, and total transaction fee revenue and network security will suffer. If we do raise the limit, total transaction fee revenue will increase along with historical trends, and Bitcoin will become more secure, while servicing more users"

I can point to historical data:



showing that, thus far, average transaction fees have not declined over time, despite the users facing no scarcity created by a limit. It's not a guarantee that in the future average transaction fees won't decline without a limit, but it's more evidence than you have for your extrapolation.

[Buffer Overflow]

Thank you for confirming my suspicions

So you somehow suspected that Bitcoin is about money? Good job einstein.

I should keep away from the "eliteOnlyCoin" if I were you

If your chosen fork only has the technically-minded "power users" (for lack of a better phrase), then you're only going to be sending your transactions amongst yourselves.  For an ecosystem to truly thrive, I'm afraid to say you'll need at least some "idiots" for the sake of network effects.

[DooMAD]

Dumb post by someone who couldn't even bother to read the Bitcoin Whitepaper.  Here's a snippet for the uninformed.

"
Long before the network gets anywhere near as large as that, it would be safe for users to use Simplified Payment Verification (section Cool to check for double spending, which only requires having the chain of block headers, or about 12KB per day. Only people trying to create new coins would need to run network nodes. At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to specialists with server farms of specialized hardware. A server farm would only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with that one node.

The bandwidth might not be as prohibitive as you think. A typical transaction would be about 400 bytes (ECC is nicely compact). Each transaction has to be broadcast twice, so lets say 1KB per transaction. Visa processed 37 billion transactions in FY2008, or an average of 100 million transactions per day. That many transactions would take 100GB of bandwidth, or the size of 12 DVD or 2 HD quality movies, or about $18 worth of bandwidth at current prices.
If the network were to get that big, it would take several years, and by then, sending 2 HD movies over the Internet would probably not seem like a big deal.

Satoshi Nakamoto
"

Important parts are highlighted.
Nowhere did satoshi say to raise blocklimit ahead of demand 20-fold.

This would imply that you'll be in favour of a fork when we do come close to hitting the 1MB limit then?  Could have sworn you weren't in favour of a fork under any circumstances.    

[davout]

Which is a change of subject, and deflection of my point.

If by this you meant that I dismissed your "point" as irrelevant, then yes.
Appeal to a long-gone authority does not constitute "a point".

Look how suddenly one quote becomes, drumroll:

the plan set out by the creator of Bitcoin

My counter is:

Look, you seem to misunderstand the nature of this conversation. We are not "in an argument" in order to "find a solution" to some mutually-understood "problem". We are instead in this situation where I'm simply stating that there is currently no "problem" to "solve".

"Why are you against adding a fifth wheel to your car?".
Because my car moves perfectly fine with four wheels.

Well you're going to need to wait longer and longer before you can get the car to start if you don't prepare for it now.

Thank you for making that point for me. When we indeed find ourselves in the presence of a slow starting car, do we really want to have to look, embarrassed, at this fifth wheel, that sounded like a really good idea at the time? No, when have this issue, we pop open the fucking hood, and have a look at what's *actually* wrong.

[RoadStress]

Why are you against the fork and against raising the block size limit?

"Why are you against adding a fifth wheel to your car?".
Because my car moves perfectly fine with four wheels.

Firstly it's not your car to begin with. It's everyone's car and if we don't raise the block limit it will be a car limited only to the highest bidders. That's simply wrong!

Nowhere did satoshi say to raise blocklimit ahead of demand 20-fold.

Hey MP guess what: Satoshi never had a block size limit! Now go and eat more shit please.

[Muuurrrrica!]

Dumb post by someone who couldn't even bother to read the Bitcoin Whitepaper.  Here's a snippet for the uninformed.

"
Long before the network gets anywhere near as large as that, it would be safe for users to use Simplified Payment Verification (section Cool to check for double spending, which only requires having the chain of block headers, or about 12KB per day. Only people trying to create new coins would need to run network nodes. At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to specialists with server farms of specialized hardware. A server farm would only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with that one node.

The bandwidth might not be as prohibitive as you think. A typical transaction would be about 400 bytes (ECC is nicely compact). Each transaction has to be broadcast twice, so lets say 1KB per transaction. Visa processed 37 billion transactions in FY2008, or an average of 100 million transactions per day. That many transactions would take 100GB of bandwidth, or the size of 12 DVD or 2 HD quality movies, or about $18 worth of bandwidth at current prices.
If the network were to get that big, it would take several years, and by then, sending 2 HD movies over the Internet would probably not seem like a big deal.

Satoshi Nakamoto
"

Important parts are highlighted.
Nowhere did satoshi say to raise blocklimit ahead of demand 20-fold.

This would imply that you'll be in favour of a fork when we do come close to hitting the 1MB limit then?  Could have sworn you weren't in favour of a fork under any circumstances.    

I would be in favour of a fork as soon as the blocklimit starts making trouble - but by then still not 20-fold.  

I don't think hitting the limit will even produce any big trouble for a long time. I think btc could  operate within 5 MB blocks for the next 3 to 5 years (or even longer) without slowing down adoption even a little.

I think Gavin must have something in his water that affects his brain.


---------


Actually no fork would be necessary at all, if people would just start entertaining the multi-chain solution a bit more.

[Muuurrrrica!]

Nowhere did satoshi say to raise blocklimit ahead of demand 20-fold.

Hey MP guess what: Satoshi never had a block size limit! Now go and eat more shit please.

I'm not MP you fuckin' idiot

[bambou]

Dumb post by someone who couldn't even bother to read the Bitcoin Whitepaper.  Here's a snippet for the uninformed.

"
Long before the network gets anywhere near as large as that, it would be safe for users to use Simplified Payment Verification (section Cool to check for double spending, which only requires having the chain of block headers, or about 12KB per day. Only people trying to create new coins would need to run network nodes. At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to specialists with server farms of specialized hardware. A server farm would only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with that one node.

The bandwidth might not be as prohibitive as you think. A typical transaction would be about 400 bytes (ECC is nicely compact). Each transaction has to be broadcast twice, so lets say 1KB per transaction. Visa processed 37 billion transactions in FY2008, or an average of 100 million transactions per day. That many transactions would take 100GB of bandwidth, or the size of 12 DVD or 2 HD quality movies, or about $18 worth of bandwidth at current prices.
If the network were to get that big, it would take several years, and by then, sending 2 HD movies over the Internet would probably not seem like a big deal.

Satoshi Nakamoto
"

Important parts are highlighted.
Nowhere did satoshi say to raise blocklimit ahead of demand 20-fold.

This would imply that you'll be in favour of a fork when we do come close to hitting the 1MB limit then?  Could have sworn you weren't in favour of a fork under any circumstances.    

I would be in favour of a fork as soon as the blocklimit starts making trouble - but by then still not 20-fold.  

I don't think hitting the limit will even produce any big trouble for a long time. I think btc could  operate within 5 MB blocks for the next 3 to 5 years (or even longer) without slowing down adoption even a little.

I think Gavin must have something in his water that affects his brain.


---------


Actually no fork would be necessary at all, if people would just start entertaining the multi-chain solution a bit more.

its impressive how bitcoiners are 100% found of themselves..

like if 7Bn people are gonna use bitcoin.. or at least its core..

or even pretending to cope with VISA or whatever other paper shit system.

seriously take a deep breath FFS.

All i can see is devs/economists wanabees, thinking they read enough BS over the internet to formulate an opinion..

well no way: bitcoin = decentralization.

And if we were to reach a consensus about that astro-bloating, ima sell errthing and move on for i'd be quite worried regarding bitcoin's alleged decentralization..

[amincd]

Look, you seem to misunderstand the nature of this conversation. We are not "in an argument" in order to "find a solution" to some mutually-understood "problem". We are instead in this situation where I'm simply stating that there is currently no "problem" to "solve".

So, if I may be presumptuous enough to say, I've established that those in support of the hard fork are not "attacking" Bitcoin, as having larger than 1 MB blocks is the plan that Bitcoin has had since its inception.

Now we move to whether there is a problem to solve. I think a 1 MB restriction that limits Bitcoin (and by 'Bitcoin', I mean the main Bitcoin blockchain, not a sidechain, a third party run micropayment channel network, or some other off-chain alternative to Bitcoin main), under any meaningful mass-adoption scenario, to 1 transaction per person, every year or so (at best), at the cost of a high fee (e.g. $30), is not the Bitcoin I want. It's a problem for me, and for anyone who signed up for this 'electronic cash' experiment, and Satoshi's vision of a Bitcoin blockchain that handles thousands of tps.

Not only that, even this poor use-case scenario, of a Bitcoin acting as an expensive high-value transaction network, is much less likely than a much worse outcome: Bitcoin fails to gain mass adoption, is eventually superseded by another blockchain, leaving all Bitcoin holders with worthless cryptocoins.

You claim there is no problem, but I contend that the majority would disagree with you. And that's fine. If you really want to stick to a 1 MB blockchain, you can. No one is going to force you. But I encourage anyone who wants a Bitcoin that is not absurdly expensive to use, and has the technical flexibility to achieve mass adoption, to push for the hard fork.

[RoadStress]

Nowhere did satoshi say to raise blocklimit ahead of demand 20-fold.

Hey MP guess what: Satoshi never had a block size limit! Now go and eat more shit please.

I'm not MP you fuckin' idiot

Ok, but my point is still valid. Satoshi never had a block size limit!

[davout]

Ok, but my point is still valid. Satoshi never had a block size limit!

Didn't he add one at some point?
The one you want removed?
Dumbass.

[amincd]

Ok, but my point is still valid. Satoshi never had a block size limit!

Didn't he add one at some point?
The one you want removed?
Dumbass.

Let's not forget, that he fully intended to remove it. It was a temporary anti-spam measure, and not intended to limit Bitcoin to 1 MB of legitimate transaction data.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Didn't he add one at some point?
The one you want removed?
Dumbass.

Please show me the commit where Satoshi added the 1MB block limit.  What about it makes you believe it was either permanent or intended to be more than an anti-spam rule?

[davout]

So, if I may be presumptuous enough to say, I've established that those in support of the hard fork are not "attacking" Bitcoin, as having larger than 1 MB blocks is the plan that Bitcoin has had since its inception.

What you think Satoshi "meant" is nowhere near as relevant as what Satoshi actually *did*.

Now we move to whether there is a problem to solve. I think a 1 MB restriction that limits Bitcoin (and by 'Bitcoin', I mean the main Bitcoin blockchain, not a sidechain, a third party run micropayment channel network, or some other off-chain alternative to Bitcoin proper)

If you have a problem that resides entirely in your head, for which you apply arbitrary constraints to solutions that would otherwise be perfectly valid and practical, it is no wonder you're going to come up with "solutions" that sound like a load of garbage.

not the Bitcoin I want

There are two things, the Bitcoin "you want", and the Bitcoin that actually exists.
And only one of them will eventually, and perhaps painfully, have to adapt to the other, my money's on reality.

is eventually superseded by another blockchain

Since you seem keen on historical data I'll point out to you that none of the technically superior alt coins actually ever mattered, market-cap wise.

anyone who wants a Bitcoin that is not absurdly expensive to use

OTOH if it's absurdly expensive to use, it'll very probably be absurdly valuable to own.

[davout]

What about it makes you believe it was either permanent or intended to be more than an anti-spam rule?

What makes you think that "original intent" has any semblance of relevance?

Fallacy: Appeal to authority

Satoshi although brilliant is a mere man and not in anyway infallible and has been shown to have made many mistakes.

His words while carrying some merit are absolutely irrelevant when they are not supported by sound arguments using logic and current empirical evidence when faced with the current problems at hand. Put simply, if he isn't coming back to address the situation we have found ourselves in it doesn't matter what he thought 2-3 years ago.

[amincd]

To everyone else:

If you want a Bitcoin that is not absurdly expensive to use, and has the technical flexibility to achieve mass adoption, I encourage you to push for the hard fork.

What you think Satoshi "meant" is nowhere near as relevant as what Satoshi actually *did*.

It's even more relevant in the context of this debate. He put in a 1 MB anti-spam limit, yes. That doesn't mean it can never be changed. There have been hard forks before, and there will be again. He intended it for to be changed, and we know that, because he communicated the intent. The plan, from the outset, was blocks to eventually get bigger than 1 MB. The limit was to protect against spam, not to limit legitimate transaction data to 1 MB.

If you have a problem that resides entirely in your head, for which you apply arbitrary constraints to solutions that would otherwise be perfectly valid and practical, it is no wonder you're going to come up with "solutions" that sound like a load of garbage.

All problems reside in someone's head, including your problem with larger blocks. A problem is subjective. I have a problem with Bitcoin relying on off-chain solutions for almost all of its scalability because I believe they are not as secure or distributed as Bitcoin main. If they were, we could reduce the block size limit to 1 kb and simply substitute the rest of the space with off-chain solutions. But they are inferior substitutes, and hence we prefer not reducing the space available for transactions on Bitcoin main. Similarly, we should, as Satoshi intended, raise the block size to permit more legitimate transactions.

not the Bitcoin I want

There are two things, the Bitcoin "you want", and the Bitcoin that actually exists.

Bitcoin will change over time, regardless of whether the hard fork happens. I want it to change to allow affordable main chain transactions, and not to force people to use off-chain solutions, and pay $30 fees to use the main chain. I also don't want to risk a scenario where people opt to use a copycat altcoin simply because it's so much cheaper.

As for your point that the protocol has a 1 MB block limit in place right now: yes thank you for informing me. The protocol can change. There is nothing stopping people from hard forking it.

And only one of them will eventually, and perhaps painfully, have to adapt to the other, my money's on reality.

The reality is that a hard fork is possible, your disingenuous arguments notwithstanding.

Since you seem keen on historical data I'll point out to you that none of the technically superior alt coins actually ever mattered, market-cap wise.

Bitcoin has never been faced with an extended period of time when its blocks were full. That means we don't know if altcoins will suddenly take market share in the event that blocks start hitting the 1 MB limit on a regular basis. Your argument is therefore, with all due respect, another case of you being disingenuous in this debate.

OTOH if it's absurdly expensive to use, it'll very probably be absurdly valuable to own.

I'd rather a Bitcoin that is both absurdly valuable, and cheap to use, because of high transaction volumes and adoption rates.