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I don't see why larger block sizes would impact government regulations about mining pools. Sounds like a baseless assertion.
Trust me, the more centralized Bitcoin becomes, whether with the miners/ledger/devs/exchanges and etc,
the more regulatable it becomes under current legal mechanisms. No lawyer would disagree with that
statement nor ever state that governments would not attempt to assert control into the protocol directly.
I agree with you generally speaking... but I don't agree that smaller blocks are the solution.
Least of all when to this silly idea that pools could be more easily regulated.
Smaller blocks is not the solution for long term, only the short term fix till technology catches up.
Our only options now is to 1. optimize Bitcoin, 2. create special storage hardware, or 3. second layers.
If we choose to just bump the blocksize, we are ignoring what the real problem is.
Our problem is not user growth or fees, it is that we are a threat to the current world system.
I do not support 1MB forever, I want on-chain scaling too, I understand that on-chain txs are the
most secure and most censorship resistant, but I also accept that we might not be able to scale
safely currently due to technological limitations. Some people can handle the 2MB to 4MB (or more),
other can not at all. Some people are still paying their internet by the byte. But the point is that
the more free disbursed validator nodes we have, the longer we will survive from an attack or
regulation from governments. The only thing that will really destroy Bitcoin is if we push this
system too far too fast. We need to balance over time, not jump to an extreme.
As for your pool regulation comment, I somewhat agree. Miners that gather together into pools to
mine are less susceptible to government control and regulation, but their main mining pool leader is.
So basically, they will need to disburse and form a new pool because the main location of the main
pool leader will always, in theory, be shutdown and litigated against. So as a response, there will
need to be "dark pools" that run over TOR or such like systems. Anyone mining in the light of day,
could be subject to regulation, if the governments decide they want to start doing that. If they
wanted to bust balls, they could claim all miners are money exchanges or money transmitters
and force them to pay fees and get licensed to mine and etc. They could attempt to regulate
them this way and if needed pull their licenses if that miner or mining pool decides to include
txs that the government does not like (ex a wikileaks donation or something). Regulating miners
is not about stopping them or Bitcoin, it is about controlling them so that they do what the
government wants them to do, such as censor certain txs. That is what we must not allow.
I love bitcoin, but I think it is greater than the value or payment platform aspect. I think we need
to slow down to protect this system's long term future. I don't want Bitcoin to die but thrive. IMO
the only way to protect this novel system is to try other systems to scale beside on-chain right now.
