Topic: Not trying to FUD... just help me understand (Read 1174 times)

The tests Gavin ran wrt block size were for 20MB and 200MB. His results are that the *current* code (but with increased max block size and tested for block at max capacity) can be run on *current* (consumer, non specialized) hardware even at those sizes.

There's this meme that the network currently can handle around 7 transactions per second (tps). In reality, because of higher average tx size, it's below that (somewhere between 3 and 6 tps, from what I know).

All other things equal, a block size of 20MB would means something around 20 tps. 200MB, around 200 tps. Not bad, but still an order of magnitude short
of Visa's (reported) 2000 tps on average.

However, keep in mind: this is for unoptimized code. Gavin mentioned what he considers a number of "low hanging fruit" optimizations to the MIT crowd, among them blockchain pruning and vastly smaller block announcements.

So, to summarize:

(1) I'd say a reasonable target for stating positively that "Bitcoin is scaling up well" would be 2000 transactions per second (tps), the VISA number

(2) Current code, current hardware, bigger blocks gets us to ~200 tps, so about 10% of the goal

(3) There's a number of optimizations that seem to be widely considered technically possible (eg pruning), and the main limitation  in implementing them seems to be a) time constraints, b) high security/testing requirements for live changes to the code, c) consensus issues, especially if changes require a (controlled) hardfork

(4) All of the above doesn't even factor in the assumed increase in available bandwidth to the consumer, and cheaper storage capacity. Even if Moore's Law (assuming exponential growth) won't hold forever, hardware and bandwidth will  certainly continue to be improved, and become cheaper to employ.


So, point (2) means, if there'd be consensus for a controlled fork to change max block size to Gavin's proposal (20MB max now, then +40% per year), we could already scale up to about 10% of average VISA. The remaining factor 10 seems well within reach when consider points (3) and (4).

Beyond that (i.e. "the network handling *all* of humankinds transactions."), I have no idea if that's feasible, and I don't know if anyone calculated that though. What I had in mind with my original response in here was "Bitcoin scales to the size of the world's largest CC company", not "Bitcoin becomes the only money". I'd say, the former scenario wouldn't be half bad already.


Disclaimer: I'm providing a digest of what I understood from Gavin (and other devs') comments on this topic. There are probably more qualified people to answer this, user DeathAndTaxes comes time mind. If there's any glaring technical mistake in my above post, please correct me on it.

I'm guessing the "foreseeable future" would be that bitcoin and maybe a few other crypto's are as big as something like VISA or Mastercard and is used a long side fiat.  Or is the foreseeable future not as big?

It isn't all about the price you know, Satoshi didn't sit down and think - how can I make a new currency that will be worth a lot of money - it is about being a global currency that can pass money from person to person without the need of middlemen scraping off profits at every point.

Now the use of the blockchain for other purposes might not have been planned by Satoshi (I don't know), but it is still a positive for the theory of bitcoin.  Anything that increases our P2P ability is in the interest of Bitcoin, even if the price isn't increased by it.

Hi
this is a good question because issues like it go to the heart of the value/price of a bitcoin. you will have seen posts talking about bitcoin going to the "moon" ie  the total demand to use it even to the satoshi level will be dramatic so that will rise the price of a bitcoin to figures like $10,000 or $100,000 for each bitcoin.

so it is important that every time blockchain "use' is mentioned it is handy if people say whether or not they think that particular "use" sits inside or outside (eg on top of it) of bitcoin - ie is it a "part moon shot" use or a use that is neutral in terms of bitcoin price.

I am increasingly of the view that much of what is to come in terms of use is not going to increase the price of a bitcoin and that its long term price will always be low in comparison to moonshot estimates ie under $500 

Bitcoin is not a global payment system at this point in time so no problem there.

Short answer: not true / false dichotomy

Longer answer: Scalability is solvable for the foreseeable future, and it is being solved. Here's a recent talk by Gavin on the topic, or you could go directly to his blog and look at his results for testing scaled up versions of the code, for example, how a blockchain with much larger blocks would handle on consumer hardware.

Is it possible to massively use the bitcoin blockchain for smart contracts and such applications with a bloated blockchain?

Some exciting new projects are using/dependent upon the bitcoin blockchain and many others are using "blockchain technology" which will not have any direct effect on the BTC chain.

yes you see it right. the great technic in this all is the blockchain. but i don not think they extend blockchain this way. when it comes somthing for "smart contract" or also "p2p-review" or "chainverification of persons" so then it will be i think a secondar chain linked to bitcoin with same parameters. so its a new extra data-layer for this things you mention so its not affect the bitcoin-network. but also we must think for the future. so data we say today is "bloat" or "overload" in some year and linked to moore's law its maybe only small data. think 10 year back. how data, bandwith, memory-limits, etc. its was soo tiny. but with the future its getting bigger and bigger and limits dissapear.

also THANK YOU. I like THIS QUESTION because its important people ARE CRITICAL with all topics, specially in the bitcoinscene and opensource and crpytocommunity. so only with critical thinking new idea is born and also only with critical thinking errors and things to change are finded. stay like this and always think soo reflective. never be mainstream!

Hello everybody I have a doubt about bitcoin, please tell me if I undersand it correctly:


Lately we have seen a lot of news about VC funding and new companies wanting to get into the bitcoin business. Thing is, a lot of them talk about how the main innovation in bitcoin is the blockchain itself and not necessarily the currency bitcoin. Using the blockchain for smart contracts and all that.
Now, the way I understand it is that bitcoin has scalability problems. 7 transaction per second are not enough right now for a global payment szstem. So Gavin Andresen thinks that in order to solve that problem the block size must be increased. Some say that this will lead to security problems and especially "blockchain bloat".
Is it possible to massively use the bitcoin blockchain for smart contracts and such applications with a bloated blockchain?
Is there a problem for alternative uses of the blockchain to be used in this case if the gavin solution to scalability gets implemented?

Because in this case the choice is between a non scalable bitcoin and a bitcoin with a "bloated blockchain".

Mine is more of a question than a statement or a critique, I'm really just trying to understand how this works.
Thank you in advance for the answers.