Lauda Though I'm unsure how far and how fast SegWit can change the problems.
Segwit is necessary for things such as LN. Segwit can only add somewhat more capacity and is not the solution to this "problem". Actually there is no way to directly (on-chain) solve this "problem" without sacrificing decentralization.
Segwit can live pretty fine without the Lightning Network. Surely it is no solution but still a somewhat clever way to raise the capacity of the blockchain.
And well, you know that the argument of nodes becoming too expensive is nothing that I would consider a real problem. If we would have a sudden increase of transactions of 10th of times and would raise the blocksize accordingly ok, then some nodes might switch off. But the areas of blocksize increases we speak now about are far far away from centralization problems.
Besides... we have centralization since a long time now. Miner are no private persons in the majority anymore. And satoshi even awaited that, which is a little bit sad. Then... we have a centralization of development of bitcoin protocol development which seems to be a way bigger problem for the moment. The community was never so divided like it is now. And the reason is disagreement with the centralized decision of the protocol developers.
Even if we had a 2 MB block size limit/Segwit, what happened yesterday would have still happened (ergo not a solution) and caused the same/similar effect.
If someone would try to spam the network with 2mb blocks the same way he did the last days then the price he would have to pay would be a ALOT higher. Well, you might be right, it is still possible since those doing it showed their insanity to spend that amount of money to such stupid and useless act, but it will be way harder to do the same with even doubling the blocksize.
Amphno, only you see no-sense everywhere, how you can be sure that it will only postpone it and not resolve it, only because segwit was temporary?
I think either a blocksize increase to 2MB nor segwit is able to solve the capacity problem once and for all. It would be cool such a solution would be around the corner but till now there are only temporay solutions discussed. Well, LN, but which bitcoiner wants to use LN? It's like saying "Bitcoin is broken, come lets use ripple, you can push bitcoins around in here too...".
sgbettSo lets imagine a hypothetical scenario where I wanted to vote. I copy and paste one of the statements, and sign the message to get this:
-----BEGIN BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE-----
I believe that block size max cap should be raised to 2mb with block halving in July 2016
-----BEGIN BITCOIN SIGNATURE-----
Version: MultiBit HD (0.2.0)
Comment: https://multibit.org
Address:
-----END BITCOIN SIGNATURE-----
When I then paste that in the site, why would I get:
"Invalid signature! Please use bitcoin software to sign the message."
And here I went to check if your signature is valid and no, it's not. Until I realized you took out the address.
The signatur would look fine for me, maybe MultiBit creates non standard signatures? Or did you build the block by putting the message and so on together by copypast? Then you might have killed or added a space or something.
chopstick Labeling Bitcoin Classic / XT / Unlimited as "altcoins" is highly disingenuous. As the Core devs have proven, centralization of the development team can be an extremely negative development, especially when their investors have ulterior motives.
We need competing implementations for the health & future of bitcoin.
Centralizing all the power into the hands of one group of people never works well. A cursory glance at history is all it takes to prove this.
You have a good point naming that a centralization issue. Decisions in the hand of one party is what the risk of centralization is. This is exactly what we have. In fact that is a point we bitcoiners critized often before already. The argument against these worries was that different people can put a version life. Well, it does not really help much now when those having a different opinion had to go so that only one opinion rules.
LiteCoinGuy i guess 95% would be ready within 3 months.
I think when there is no real solution to stop all the delays for transactions then the complaints about it will become pretty much. I doubt it will be in 3 months already but surely the anger can only rise from now. And I think Segwit has not the ability to fix these things fast enough even when implemented today.