Critical "overhead" of blockchain

[max.lele90]

Hi.
What do you think about services that work in order to store extra data on the blockchain ?
is it possible to reach a critical overhead of the blockchain??
I think about counterpaty.io, bitshares etc..

thanks.

[krigger]

Hi.
What do you think about services that work in order to store extra data on the blockchain ?
is it possible to reach a critical overhead of the blockchain??
I think about counterpaty.io, bitshares etc..

thanks.

What makes you think that it can be critical?
I dont see why?

[MicroGuy]

The massive growth of the blockchain has already made commercial centralization inevitable. Not exactly what Satoshi had in mind.

I think if he was still around, he would have had found a solution by now.

[Meuh6879]

size ?

not a problem ... since 2009 to 2015, only 35 Go !

Less than the average 13Go of pictures per person (and per year) on average computer.

[DannyHamilton]

The massive growth of the blockchain has already made commercial centralization inevitable. Not exactly what Satoshi had in mind.

I think if he was still around, he would have had found a solution by now.

You are mistaken.  It is exactly what Satoshi had in mind:

(bold emphasis below added by me)

The design outlines a lightweight client that does not need the full block chain.  In the design PDF it's called Simplified Payment Verification.  The lightweight client can send and receive transactions, it just can't generate blocks.  It does not need to trust a node to verify payments, it can still verify them itself.

- snip -

I anticipate there will never be more than 100K nodes, probably less.  It will reach an equilibrium where it's not worth it for more nodes to join in.  The rest will be lightweight clients, which could be millions.

At equilibrium size, many nodes will be server farms with one or two network nodes that feed the rest of the farm over a LAN.

- snip -
Simplified Payment Verification is for lightweight client-only users who only do transactions and don't generate and don't participate in the node network.  They wouldn't need to download blocks, just the hash chain, which is currently about 2MB and very quick to verify (less than a second to verify the whole chain).  If the network becomes very large, like over 100,000 nodes, this is what we'll use to allow common users to do transactions without being full blown nodes.  At that stage, most users should start running client-only software and only the specialist server farms keep running full network nodes, kind of like how the usenet network has consolidated.
- snip -

The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale.  That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server.  The design supports letting users just be users.  The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be.  Those few nodes will be big server farms.  The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate.
- snip -

[Klestin]

You are mistaken.  It is exactly what Satoshi had in mind:

<Detailed quotes and analysis>

Does it ever wear you down to know there will be ten more (or the same) naysayers and doomcryers spouting the same nonsense tomorrow?  And that none of them will acknowledge their mistakes and stop for a moment to read and understand the actual facts?

[Cryddit]

I think there's a lot of people out here who've been listening to each other too much.  Bitcoin started with Engineering effort, mostly Satoshi's and Hal Finney's.  Other engineers joined the project and brought it to its present state. It was only after it started actually working that it became a "movement" attracting people for idealistic reasons - again starting with Hal Finney, but that part of it specifically did not involve Satoshi as far as I know.  And only after it became a "movement" did it wind up on the radar of the people who are just in it to make a buck - a cadre that Satoshi and Finney are both not a part of as far as anyone can tell.  

Satoshi's recorded posts are pretty silent on most of the Idealist stuff that's been associated with the "Bitcoin Movement".  Satoshi did not IIRC assume that all banks and all governments are inherently dishonest.  Hal Finney did, but I don't remember anything like that ever associated with Satoshi.  Satoshi was very much in favor of building a monetary system where certain types of dishonesty are flatly impossible, but he wasn't a revolutionary against banks and governments, he was just applying engineering skills to try to solve a longstanding human problem.

But the Bitcoin project attracted goldbugs because of its limited-supply, it attracted people who are fed up with governments and believe all governments are dishonest because of being a form of money that isn't government-issued, and it attracted people who are fed up with banks and believe all banks are dishonest because of allowing people to do their own banking without relying on banks and money transmitters.  And Hal Finney was a member of all three of those groups.  

And each of those three groups arrived with a certain number of people who had carefully considered, mostly moderate and fairly nuanced opinions on the matter, and a certain number of people who are, if you'll excuse me for saying so, raving conspiracy-theorist loonies who paint all banks and all governments everywhere as having been inherently evil throughout all of history.

And they brought the project up to a critical mass which attracted speculators who are just looking for a quick way to make a buck.

And all of these groups, it seems to me, have assumed that Satoshi shared all of their political views and/or aspirations to enormous wealth, when in fact he was so apolotical that no one can even tell what country he was from and apparently does not give a shit about making any money from the million-plus bitcoins that he mined back when he was the main reason the block chain was secure at all. 

[MicroGuy]

The massive growth of the blockchain has already made commercial centralization inevitable. Not exactly what Satoshi had in mind.

I think if he was still around, he would have had found a solution by now.

You are mistaken.  It is exactly what Satoshi had in mind:

(bold emphasis below added by me)

The design outlines a lightweight client that does not need the full block chain.  In the design PDF it's called Simplified Payment Verification.  The lightweight client can send and receive transactions, it just can't generate blocks.  It does not need to trust a node to verify payments, it can still verify them itself.

- snip -

I anticipate there will never be more than 100K nodes, probably less.  It will reach an equilibrium where it's not worth it for more nodes to join in.  The rest will be lightweight clients, which could be millions.

At equilibrium size, many nodes will be server farms with one or two network nodes that feed the rest of the farm over a LAN.

- snip -
Simplified Payment Verification is for lightweight client-only users who only do transactions and don't generate and don't participate in the node network.  They wouldn't need to download blocks, just the hash chain, which is currently about 2MB and very quick to verify (less than a second to verify the whole chain).  If the network becomes very large, like over 100,000 nodes, this is what we'll use to allow common users to do transactions without being full blown nodes.  At that stage, most users should start running client-only software and only the specialist server farms keep running full network nodes, kind of like how the usenet network has consolidated.
- snip -

The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale.  That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server.  The design supports letting users just be users.  The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be.  Those few nodes will be big server farms.  The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate.
- snip -

I stand corrected. Thank you for taking the time to set me straight. 

[Klestin]

I stand corrected. Thank you for taking the time to set me straight. 

As do I. 

[DannyHamilton]

I stand corrected. Thank you for taking the time to set me straight. 

Not a problem.

We don't know what we don't know until someone explains it to us.

There are still many things that I probably still don't know as well, and don't even realize that I don't know it.  I'm corrected all the time by people that know more than I do, when I make a mistake.  I do what I can to internalize what the knowledgeable people tell me and I try hard to verify everything that I'm told so that I don't spread false information if I can help it.