Author

Topic: Could this be a success with Consortium / Private Blockchain? (Read 396 times)

member
Activity: 117
Merit: 10
- snip -
I bet he didn't see the 1MB anti spam limit being turned into a centrally determined economic policy tool
- snip -

Well, he definitely saw it being a centrally controlled tool, but he saw himself as that central control. In response to J. Garzik publishing a fork with a larger maxblocksize limit in October 2010 he said:

Don't use this patch, it'll make you incompatible with the network, to your own detriment.

We can phase in a change later if we get closer to needing it.

In 2010, 1MB was ridiculously higher than the actual usage of the blockchain for real economic uses. Satoshi was right that the change wasn't needed then, and Garzik had the foresight to see that it would eventually become a problem, which it did. Today, that entire 1MB is filled with real, fee-paying traffic, and Garzik is probably left wishing he would have defended his position more vigorously at the time. He probably didn't because it was widely agreed that it would be lifted before it was hit.

This all changed after Blockstream was founded.

It can be phased in, like:

if (blocknumber > 115000)
    maxblocksize = largerlimit

It can start being in versions way ahead, so by the time it reaches that block number and goes into effect, the older versions that don't have it are already obsolete.

When we're near the cutoff block number, I can put an alert to old versions to make sure they know they have to upgrade.
(bold emphasis added by me)

He didn't give any indication who should be in charge of that central control when he left.

Most would read this as having the maxblocksize limit above natural traffic, with miners deciding their own min fees and adjusting their blocksizes accordingly. That would be a free market situation, with a limit as a DoS safety check. What we have now is central economic planning by an insular and infallible priesthood of Core devs, the most influential of which formed/work for a company with its own interests. Interests that may be at odds with the health and competitiveness of the network proper.

The indication of who is in charge is in the whitepaper:

Quote
They vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them. Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism.

Unfortunately, the miners are extremely risk averse, and forking away from Core would cause fear and impact the short term price. Theymos controls bitcoin.org, r/bitcoin, and this forum... so he could theoretically have a good chance of encouraging a persistent network fork by offering a competing client with diff PoW, and censoring information about what was happening. Miners' fear of this outcome is currently more pronounced than the alternative of hemorrhaging users, investment, and tx's to altcoins.
legendary
Activity: 3388
Merit: 4615
- snip -
I bet he didn't see the 1MB anti spam limit being turned into a centrally determined economic policy tool
- snip -

Well, he definitely saw it being a centrally controlled tool, but he saw himself as that central control. In response to J. Garzik publishing a fork with a larger maxblocksize limit in October 2010 he said:

Don't use this patch, it'll make you incompatible with the network, to your own detriment.

We can phase in a change later if we get closer to needing it.

It can be phased in, like:

if (blocknumber > 115000)
    maxblocksize = largerlimit

It can start being in versions way ahead, so by the time it reaches that block number and goes into effect, the older versions that don't have it are already obsolete.

When we're near the cutoff block number, I can put an alert to old versions to make sure they know they have to upgrade.
(bold emphasis added by me)

He didn't give any indication who should be in charge of that central control when he left.
full member
Activity: 147
Merit: 100
Make world a better place to live!!!
Thanks for the answers both members. Nobody tries to force any point of view. I express my way of consideration.
member
Activity: 117
Merit: 10
Satoshi certainly saw the industrialization and professionalization of mining.

I bet he didn't see the 1MB anti spam limit being turned into a centrally determined economic policy tool to push fees off chain and enrich Blockstream's VC investors. Because the real reason isn't acceptable... it's sold as necessary to keep rasb pi nodes on rural DSL acting as "full" nodes (which is silly when you read what he wrote about the network at scale, which you've helpfully provided.)
legendary
Activity: 3388
Merit: 4615
- snip -
They reach a point where the core developers have betrayed the white paper of Satoshi. The power of mining has gone to large corporations
- snip -

Betrayed?

Nonsense.

Satoshi said so himself that he always intended for bitcoin mining to be consolidated into large corporations.

- snip -
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 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.
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 -
(bold emphasis added by me)

Bitcoin might not be what you want it to be, but that doesn't mean that it isn't what it was intended to be.  You'll find it difficult to force your desires on the rest of us.
full member
Activity: 147
Merit: 100
Make world a better place to live!!!
Financial companies trying different ways of approaching Bitcoin’s blockchain. These technologies could be applied to our financial system by 2020. 
We are witness of bitcoin's development, and other cryptocurrencies known as alternatives. The path is dangerous and the banking system tries to eliminate the miners that back it, and avoid the currency that is intertwined with it.
What is innovative about the bitcoin protocol is the way it provides security and transaction verification without a central point of control.  It is this core innovation that scares the heck out of everybody. The moneymakers lose their power, as days go by, and it is in their hands to embrace it.
Instead doing that choice, they have started a race for blockchain. Everyone’s institute tries to create a system similar to the Bitcoin’s blockchain. Without implement the main Satoshi rule. Bitcoin needs miners and nodes, and freedom of its creation upon simple users. Each person should be in a position to create Bitcoin.
But this principal has been eliminated by the core. They reach a point where the core developers have betrayed the white paper of Satoshi.
The power of mining has gone to large corporations, so in the hands of few. 
Now is the time for the banking system to step ahead. Be again the owner of creating not physical money but digital. This is their opportunity. If history is any guide, they will fail and be forced to accept that decentralized bitcoin is unstoppable.
Hoped the core developers also choose the right path, the path of giving each indivitual the liberty to have a piece of bitcoin. It is still not to late to change the course!!!!
   
Jump to: