[POLL FINISHED] The block size limit controversy: a proper poll (30 days) - page 2.

dree12

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Quote from: Come-from-Beyond on February 22, 2013, 04:16:09 PM

Remove the limit completely, so ppl could spam more useless transactions. Let's make HDD producers to produce disks with 100500 PETABYTES capacity!

Removing the limit does not imply useless transactions. It simply means the market will decide what is a useless transaction. So long as clients prefer smaller blocks over larger ones, the miners will decide among themselves what a suitable block size is. If it's too high, small-block miners will earn more and blocks will get smaller. If it's too low, large-block miners will earn more and blocks will get larger.

Isn't this what Bitcoin's about? All we need to do is make sure the system cannot be exploited, test it on testnet, and then not need to worry about block sizes ever again.

Appendix:
1. What changes are needed?
A: The "longest chain" code needs to increase the length of shorter blocks and decrease the length of longer ones. Clients also need to set a bandwidth quota so that they download and propagate the best currently-downloaded chain.
2. Couldn't a miner just spam the network with a huge block?
A: No. Like transactions, blocks need "confirmations". If other miners think the block is too big, they will refuse to confirm it and a smaller block will replace it (as they orphan large blocks).
3. Wouldn't blocks be too big?
A: No. Miners will take an unacceptable risk if they mine large blocks, as they are likely to get orphaned. Higher demand and higher transaction fees will make taking that risk more attractive, so block size can scale with usage.
4. Wouldn't miners just mine empty blocks?
A: Eventually, no. This is a concern in the short term, but as soon as transaction fees overtake subsidies empty blocks will no longer be attractive.
5. Wouldn't this allow DOS attacks?
A: Yes. However, DOS attack prevention code can be written to give up downloading a particularly large block if a competing chain is running at not far below network hashrate.
6. Isn't this a hard fork?
A: Done properly, not any more than raising the block limit. The length code only acts as a tiebreaker, which we already have in "first block wins".

Come-from-Beyond

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Newbie

Remove the limit completely, so ppl could spam more useless transactions. Let's make HDD producers to produce disks with 100500 PETABYTES capacity!

Less transactions -> Higher fees included coz txs have to compete -> Earlier Bitcoin enters its maturity age

ShadowOfHarbringer

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Quote from: niko on February 22, 2013, 10:09:37 AM

I voted "I don't know," but changed my mind after reading - can you edit the poll so we can change our vote (not sure if forum software lets you do that)?

Unfortunately, no.

asdf

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The limit is completely pointless. It was put there to stop transaction spam, but this can easily be prevented by simply requiring a fee.

Why is "remove it entirely" not an option?

Ultimately, it's up to the miners, so the debate is moot. If they don't remove it, then Bitcoin was never going to work anyway. Vice versa.

n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU

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Quote from: ?? on ??

In time, the block size may need to change. But there's absolutely no rush.

Let the block size stay at the current size until the limit is hit; then let us run with that for a while. Let us see how easy or hard people find it to work within the limit; let us see what effect it has on transaction fees and confirmation times.

Eventually, a strong consensus might form around an appropriate change. Then, only then, is it worth working out how to implement the change. Equally, we may find that some other solution arises which negates the need for any hard change.

Quote from: niko on February 22, 2013, 01:01:53 PM

I am surprised how most of people here seem to have already formed a firm opinion on the issue of block size limit, when obviously the issue is extremely complex, and it involves technological but also economic aspects. Not, economy is not an exact science (if you even call it a science). All in all, it is impossible to predict how a complex system will respond. Bitcoin is an experiment anyway. We need to decide carefully what the next step will be, but unfortunately there is more rhetorics than dialectics in this forum.

Glad to see common sense posts advocating an extremely cautious approach.

Waiting first, and then acting based on actual evidence, would seem the best way of avoiding damaging or splitting a $300M (or more) economy.

If/when we get to the point where it's clear we need to go past 1MB, I'd trust Gavin to drive some kind of consensus process around ideas such as misterbigg's, favoring the preservation of a diversified and balanced mining ecosystem with low barriers to entry over unlimited transactional capacity.

justusranvier

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Quote from: niko on February 22, 2013, 01:01:53 PM

Not, economy is not an exact science (if you even call it a science). All in all, it is impossible to predict how a complex system will respond.

That's why it's pointless to try playing central planner.

The correct block size is the size that the miners are willing to mine, and that the nodes are willing to relay. All of the objections which revolve around what miners with faster connections could do to the rest of the network are just variations of the 51% attack, which limiting the block size doesn't solve anyway.

niko

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There is more to Bitcoin than bitcoins.

Quote from: Nubarius on February 22, 2013, 11:28:54 AM

Quote from: niko on February 22, 2013, 11:20:51 AM

Can miners pad the block they mined with useless data to fill it up to the limit?

No, because they need to calculate a valid hash value for all the data in the block, which would include the useless data plus the reference to a previous block on the chain.

Edit: Well, to phrase it a bit better, it's not that it would be impossible to do that, of course. You could in theory fill the block to the limit with useless data and start incrementing the nonce until a valid hash value is found. But I fail to see how that would be better than actually including transactions.

When there are no enough transactions to max out the block size, padding the block may be an advantage in terms of harming competitors on lower bandwidth connections.

I am surprised how most of people here seem to have already formed a firm opinion on the issue of block size limit, when obviously the issue is extremely complex, and it involves technological but also economic aspects. Not, economy is not an exact science (if you even call it a science). All in all, it is impossible to predict how a complex system will respond. Bitcoin is an experiment anyway. We need to decide carefully what the next step will be, but unfortunately there is more rhetorics than dialectics in this forum.

Nubarius

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Quote from: niko on February 22, 2013, 11:20:51 AM

Can miners pad the block they mined with useless data to fill it up to the limit?

No, because they need to calculate a valid hash value for all the data in the block, which would include the useless data plus the reference to a previous block on the chain.

Edit: Well, to phrase it a bit better, it's not that it would be impossible to do that, of course. You could in theory fill the block to the limit with useless data and start incrementing the nonce until a valid hash value is found. But I fail to see how that would be better than actually including transactions.

niko

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There is more to Bitcoin than bitcoins.

Can miners pad the block they mined with useless data to fill it up to the limit?

Nubarius

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I tend to agree with with dree12 and nevafuse. I think block size limit hasn't played any role whatsoever in Bitcoin's growth until now. As long as block sizes have always been way below the limit, the situation has been essentially the same as if there were no limit. And most miners, as far as I know, currently use software that apply Satoshi's priority rules for minimum transaction fees. I can't see any reason why miners would abandon minimum-fee rules to guard against spammy and DOS minitransactions in the future. Maybe there's something I'm missing, but I find the idea that the protocol must set a limit a very moot one, and I support either removing the limit altogether or making it much higher.

Timo Y

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Please stop asking for a hard fork, people doing this are destroing Bitcoin image and credibility. No one of you are entitled to make a poll in the name of the comunity, a few people on these forums don't represent the whole comunity.

¿Do you realice how many people have invested their live savings here? We are speaking at the moment of 318,709,754$, you are all playing with fire and people lives.

Do you expect, all of us selling our Bitcoins and switch to Bitcoin 2 at no loss? People will lose money, a lot o money if a panic sell occurs. Bitcoin will lose credibility for YEARS and investors will flee for ever.

If you want a hard fork, no one is stoping you taking the source code and doing an alt currency but don't name it Bitcoin.

What gives Bitcoin it's value are the rules. Protocol rules must be set in stone, unalterable for ever.

There are good alternatives around there if anyone whant instant transactions like VISA/Mastercard and Ripple.

Sorry to be rought, no offence, but these are my feelings.

Regards.

We should be very careful about the hard fork, but we shouldn't be paralyzed by fear either.

One could equally argue that NOT upgrading is playing with peoples' lives. Nobody knows what's going to happen.

I am still undecided on this issue, but I doubt that a conservative hard fork will trigger panic selling. Eg. increasing the limit from 1 MiB to 10 MiB, as sugessted by Peter Wuille, will bring benefits of a higher transaction rate while still allowing normal users to run a full node. Investors understand this.

The switch doesn't need to be catastrophic. It can be announced 6 months in advance and it can be done in a way that it only happens once 99% of users have upgraded to the new client already.

As for people putting their life savings into bitcoin, well, they have been repeatedly warned against this by Gavin and other community members, and you can't really blame the developers if people invest money that they can't afford to lose.

niko

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There is more to Bitcoin than bitcoins.

I voted "I don't know," but changed my mind after reading - can you edit the poll so we can change our vote (not sure if forum software lets you do that)?

nevafuse

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Quote from: dree12 on February 22, 2013, 08:08:07 AM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 22, 2013, 04:34:09 AM

Quote from: dree12 on February 21, 2013, 06:53:01 PM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 21, 2013, 05:08:30 PM

Quote from: nevafuse on February 21, 2013, 04:05:11 PM

Can "No limit" be added? Thanks.

No it cannot.

Without the limit, Bitcoin network can't function.

There has been no proof of this.

1. After the last Bitcoin will be minted, there will be no incentive for miners to mine, except for transaction fees. When block can be of any size, then any number of transactions can make it into every block, therefore theoretically no transaction fees need to be paid.

2. How do you protect the network from dust spam & DDoS without block size limit ?

Neither of these is a problem if large blocks are orphaned by small ones. It makes mining more of a skill, as they must make the largest block that is not too large such that other miners will receive it fast enough.

I couldn't agree more with dree12. Placing a limit is unnecessary. Miners have no incentives to push unnecessary large blocks because they run the risk of them not propagating fast enough & being orphaned. Even if the orphan risk is low enough to include every transaction & the block reward is gone, the cost of mining is still an incentive to only include transactions with fees. Of course there will be COMPETING miners out there that include transactions without fees, but they probably won't have the hash rate of the ones that do require fees. Therefore you will have choice whether to include a fee to get it confirmed faster or not which will keep the transaction fee from being monopolized. The same could be said for the divisibility limit IMO.

ShadowOfHarbringer

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Quote from: dree12 on February 22, 2013, 08:08:07 AM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 22, 2013, 04:34:09 AM

Quote from: dree12 on February 21, 2013, 06:53:01 PM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 21, 2013, 05:08:30 PM

Quote from: nevafuse on February 21, 2013, 04:05:11 PM

Can "No limit" be added? Thanks.

No it cannot.

Without the limit, Bitcoin network can't function.

There has been no proof of this.

1. After the last Bitcoin will be minted, there will be no incentive for miners to mine, except for transaction fees. When block can be of any size, then any number of transactions can make it into every block, therefore theoretically no transaction fees need to be paid.

2. How do you protect the network from dust spam & DDoS without block size limit ?

Neither of these is a problem if large blocks are orphaned by small ones. It makes mining more of a skill, as they must make the largest block that is not too large such that other miners will receive it fast enough.

You are giving total control to the miners.
And sooner or later they will conspire to decide the block size between themselves.

dree12

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Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 22, 2013, 04:34:09 AM

Quote from: dree12 on February 21, 2013, 06:53:01 PM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 21, 2013, 05:08:30 PM

Quote from: nevafuse on February 21, 2013, 04:05:11 PM

Can "No limit" be added? Thanks.

No it cannot.

Without the limit, Bitcoin network can't function.

There has been no proof of this.

1. After the last Bitcoin will be minted, there will be no incentive for miners to mine, except for transaction fees. When block can be of any size, then any number of transactions can make it into every block, therefore theoretically no transaction fees need to be paid.

2. How do you protect the network from dust spam & DDoS without block size limit ?

Neither of these is a problem if large blocks are orphaned by small ones. It makes mining more of a skill, as they must make the largest block that is not too large such that other miners will receive it fast enough.

SimonL

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Quote from: dree12 on February 21, 2013, 06:53:01 PM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 21, 2013, 05:08:30 PM

Quote from: nevafuse on February 21, 2013, 04:05:11 PM

Can "No limit" be added? Thanks.

No it cannot.

Without the limit, Bitcoin network can't function.

There has been no proof of this. A possible system is one where the client limits the download speed for any particular block, but not the actual block size. If there is a tie between two blocks, the smaller one wins. Miners will not intentionally create small blocks because there is no income when the subsidy falls, and they will not intentionally create large blocks because they waste their own bandwidth and the block will never get in.

So far, nobody has refuted this system.

I can offer a possible avenue of attack on the system if no limit is imposed on blocks. If no max block size is imposed it is possible to force on the network a massive block that takes longer to propagate than the 10 minute window between block broadcasts. If this occurs enough times the difficulty calculated based on how many blocks were broadcast in the last difficulty period will result in a lower difficulty. Thus massive blocks that the network can't handle will attack the metric used to determine difficulty. This will result in a shorter window so that miners are incentivised to broadcast massive blocks. This would inevitable massively bloat the blockchain in a short space of time. This could also push out smaller miners and make the network more centralised.

Though there is no "proof", I've yet to hear anyone say that this kind of attack is not possible. An algorithmic and gradual raising of the max block size based around what the network can handle is far more sane and reasonable. It should not be based on miner incentives, economic principles or any such justification. It should only be raised if the network of nodes as a majority, are able to comfortably process larger blocks.

Piper67

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Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 22, 2013, 05:55:18 AM

Quote from: jl2012 on February 22, 2013, 05:01:50 AM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 22, 2013, 04:34:09 AM

Quote from: dree12 on February 21, 2013, 06:53:01 PM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 21, 2013, 05:08:30 PM

Quote from: nevafuse on February 21, 2013, 04:05:11 PM

Can "No limit" be added? Thanks.

No it cannot.

Without the limit, Bitcoin network can't function.

There has been no proof of this.

1. After the last Bitcoin will be minted, there will be no incentive for miners to mine, except for transaction fees. When block can be of any size, then any number of transactions can make it into every block, therefore theoretically no transaction fees need to be paid.

2. How do you protect the network from dust spam & DDoS without block size limit ?

Your theory is wrong. Miners have no obligation to include free transactions

Correct, however if any number of transactions can and should theoretically make it into the block, won't the miners conspire and create their own limits anyway in order to save their profits ?

So won't theoretical "no limit" result in practical "miners decide what the limit is" ?

There is also no indication that the block size limit will be left to the miners. The prevailing thought is that it will be regulated by an algorithm, much the same as difficulty. Miners would also love to have a lower difficulty, but that's not their decision. It will be something similar with the block size. Large enough to accommodate all transactions as required, small enough to still prioritize those with fees so the miners are happy.

Incidentally, any miner who isn't happy is welcome to switch off their rigs. Then the difficulty will drop and whatever fees there are available (and there will always be some) will go to the remaining miners.

ShadowOfHarbringer

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Quote from: jl2012 on February 22, 2013, 05:01:50 AM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 22, 2013, 04:34:09 AM

Quote from: dree12 on February 21, 2013, 06:53:01 PM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 21, 2013, 05:08:30 PM

Quote from: nevafuse on February 21, 2013, 04:05:11 PM

Can "No limit" be added? Thanks.

No it cannot.

Without the limit, Bitcoin network can't function.

There has been no proof of this.

1. After the last Bitcoin will be minted, there will be no incentive for miners to mine, except for transaction fees. When block can be of any size, then any number of transactions can make it into every block, therefore theoretically no transaction fees need to be paid.

2. How do you protect the network from dust spam & DDoS without block size limit ?

Your theory is wrong. Miners have no obligation to include free transactions

Correct, however if any number of transactions can and should theoretically make it into the block, won't the miners conspire and create their own limits anyway in order to save their profits ?

So won't theoretical "no limit" result in practical "miners decide what the limit is" ?

jl2012

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Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 22, 2013, 04:34:09 AM

Quote from: dree12 on February 21, 2013, 06:53:01 PM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 21, 2013, 05:08:30 PM

Quote from: nevafuse on February 21, 2013, 04:05:11 PM

Can "No limit" be added? Thanks.

No it cannot.

Without the limit, Bitcoin network can't function.

There has been no proof of this.

1. After the last Bitcoin will be minted, there will be no incentive for miners to mine, except for transaction fees. When block can be of any size, then any number of transactions can make it into every block, therefore theoretically no transaction fees need to be paid.

2. How do you protect the network from dust spam & DDoS without block size limit ?

Your theory is wrong. Miners have no obligation to include free transactions

ShadowOfHarbringer

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Activity: 1470

Merit: 1006

Bringing Legendary Har® to you since 1952

Quote from: dree12 on February 21, 2013, 06:53:01 PM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 21, 2013, 05:08:30 PM

Quote from: nevafuse on February 21, 2013, 04:05:11 PM

Can "No limit" be added? Thanks.

No it cannot.

Without the limit, Bitcoin network can't function.

There has been no proof of this.

1. After the last Bitcoin will be minted, there will be no incentive for miners to mine, except for transaction fees. When block can be of any size, then any number of transactions can make it into every block, therefore theoretically no transaction fees need to be paid.

2. How do you protect the network from dust spam & DDoS without block size limit ?

Topic: [POLL FINISHED] The block size limit controversy: a proper poll (30 days) - page 2. (Read 4842 times)