Topic: Poll: Mike H. Interview - Convincing or not? - page 2. (Read 4958 times)

Why are people so worried about Bitpay and Circle being frustrated? Hell, Bitpay has got much bigger fish to fry than the block size debate. The blocks aren't full -- now bitcoin will die because the limit hasn't been increased?

Come on, now....

Hearn and Gavin are clearly trying to implement a solution that would mimic a 'Satoshi solution' if he were active/present. But they are wrong.

Satoshi wouldn't auto-double the block limit every 2 years simply because we cannot predict the future that far in advance. Scaling the block limit is not a long-term (decades long) solution. Instead, he would increase the block limit to some arbitrary even number (probably eight), make it static and large enough to buy some years. Then he'd fork again down the road if network demand dictated and as additional solutions presented.

However, with the current regulatory squeeze and with businesses becoming frustrated over the core team's inaction, if we wait just a little longer, it won't be necessary to scale because network growth will enter a reversal/dying phase.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the latter assumption. Evidence suggests that the incumbents you are referring to almost certainly gamed the decentralisation trend as a scenario at least 20 years ago, if not further back. 

Yeah, despite his signature exposing the debt-based central banking mega-scam! Isn't that highly... peculiar? The retarded arguments of some of these bizarro posters is flabbergasting, their motivations hard to imagine...



THIS is the big question. This is what we want to figure out. Assuming motives is equally as silly as assuming that the most advanced malicious and sophisticated attackers are sitting idly by while decentralization undoes their millennia-old process of consolidation of centralized power structures.

I'm glad that you're supporting the current 1MB limit to stay long enough, so do I.

The 8MB number comes from the idea that changes in the consensus rules need to be rare and discreet, otherwise the internal competition in the system would tear the whole idea of consensus apart fairly quickly. From that perspective the limit needs to be high enough for us not to bother changing it again for a long period of time and at the same time be able to counter potential external competition in this space. But because the new limit is so high compared to the current one we need to be careful with the appropriate timing for the change to take effect.


8MB is indeed more of a throughput suggestion than anything else. There are concerns about super-linearity property of block verification time (meaning that single 8MB block might take longer to verify than 8x1MB blocks), so those need to be taken into account when the actual solution is going to be implemented.

Fee market is another interesting aspect of the system as the competition is supposed to prevent the economic pressure from building up too high, but the network effect and the costs to switch should work in favor of keeping each particular system pressurized. In the idealistic scenario that I keep in mind a few healthy coins representing the core values of the original idea might work as cylinders in the combustion engine, where each system is pressurized to the max at different moments in time and decides to raise its bandwidth target before the pressure leaves to another one. We will see how much of that actually manifests.

If it resolved a sudden spike in Bitcoin userbase (i.e. larger than x8), something like "8 and 8 only" wouldn't be such a terrible compromise to me, but I'd far prefer the beginning of at least some of the non-blocksize scaling solutions before any sudden aberrations in the transaction rate ever happen. Hope it transpires that way, a userbase spike right here in October 2015 would just reignite this timewasting nonsense all over again.

Well, suppose that bitcoin is, in fact, growing and being adopted as we speak. While I'm obviously not too bothered by the idea of a fee market, I still think a fee market is less desirable than no fee market. So, if we have already maximized efficiency/minimized spam (we have not), I think addressing throughput directly is the next logical answer.

So, to the extent that we can increase the block size limit without foregoing or jeopardizing key tenets of bitcoin (consensus, decentralization, network security), I think we should do that. But that necessarily entails a very conservative approach where we can achieve testable conditions (i.e. roughly in line with actual demand).

8MB, exponential scaling = straight up reckless.

8mb block outta thin future extrapolations is as dumb as any other blocksize BIP proposal.

Besides, scaling is not a matter of blocksize so how about people let it go?

1MB Blocksize purposely prevent spam, and it is working just fine.

Its time the delusional reddit wanabees face the reality as such fork wont happen any time soon.

Economic majority wins.

Hearn, Gavin and their little noobs army out.

I appreciate your attention to details for I value that just as well.

My username suggests the next bandwidth target for the idea of a static limit on block size, but doesn't hint at the time when the adjustment needs to be made. I argued against many other more sophisticated scalability proposals with mathematical rigor, but it was when I found myself defending the future limit against the current one, that I realized the obvious contradiction in my line of thinking.

Finding the appropriate moment in time for the transition would become the most challenging and interesting part of Bitcoin's evolutionary path.

Just noticed the disconnect between your message and your username.   

In the early stages the system had very little mass and inertia, thus Satoshi could easily tweak a few parameters here and there without everyone being concerned. The 1MB limit was placed 5 years ago, became part of the consensus rules and hasn't been touched since then. Only now we begin talking about it in a serious way.


It does. If the current limit is removed before it becomes effective, then the new one doesn't make any sense, we can just as well throw it away. But that would definitely affect network's long-term characteristics (like costs to entry into validation) and make its evolutionary dynamics so much less predictable. If we are to agree on the new limit we must let the current one hold long enough and prove itself in action.


Yes, we haven't gone through this yet. The part of the cycle when the system is operating under the economic pressure is absolutely necessary, as Bitcoin needs to demonstrate that the validation costs can temporarily go down in order for the idea of freely accessible blockchain to be sustainable over the decades to come. If Bitcoin cannot show this, then any even remotely successful crypto-currency would be destined to eventually centralize and lose its original core values.

There must be a force in the economic system which can weight in on the limit and defend it at all costs as it's supposed to represent their interests. We are talking about the Bitcoin users here and we stand united.

History proves you wrong on this one.  We've already changed the block size cap - it used to be unlimited (effectively 20MB due to other restrictions) and it was moved to 1MB as a temporary measure to avoid potential spamming.  


Switching to 8MB cap does exactly nothing immediately to the block size.  We currently have a 1MB cap, yet we do not have 1MB blocks.  8MB gives some room to grow, that's all.


Then you should welcome a block size increase.  We already have an open economic system.  If miners want higher fees, they are free to increase their minimums.  If enough of them do, then users will need to pay the fees or live with a slower transaction time.  If/when we hit the cap, we will be entering uncharted territory, and imposing an artificial block on the natural increase of Bitcoin adoption.

The only thing that forces us to come together and consider changing the rules is "static" limit on block size, but only when enough pressure begins building up. With the curve in BIP101 there will never be a distinct point in time that would trigger us to consider deviating from that schedule. The blockchain will slowly but surely be sliding away and eventually get locked up in those large data-centers under the premise of "national security", that's where Bitcoin as we know it would end.

But, as it stands now, even 8MB blocks might be risky at the moment as we may lose significant amounts of full nodes and then decisions of changing the "consensus" rules will be made without the actual users of the network. Economic pressure is a good thing, we should be welcoming it as there is a need to test this aspect of the system and see what other effects come into play and how the whole ecosystem reacts to this.

If BIP 101 were adopted, we would move to 8MB, then when the first doubling came around, we could "fork again in a few years as/if needed".  If the first doubling were judged OK, we could revisit again in four years,  etc.

The idea that 101 somehow locks us in to the doubling permanently is completely wrong.  If 101 truly sounds like the "worst idea since the invention of software" to you, you've been listening to the shills too much.

You should try to defend yourself with arguments instead of fluffy meaningless post (like above).

No, it's about whether the value judgement is the subject of a debate or whether it is intended as a subversive or diversive tactic i.e. actually conforming to the actual definition of ad hominem

But there's no need to explain to you, you re-write the book on subversive and diversionary argumentative tactics (literally) all day long (indeed, I'm currently defending myself from your twisted logic approach). 

1) "nothing hard". Oh, "You Don't Know!" how hard it is to build the excessive hash-power that controls the coins emission schedule and secures the network at the same time. It takes a lot of time and there has to be a very good reason to even begin thinking about trying to duplicate that.

2) "nothing magical". There sure has been a whole lot of "magical smoke" floating around this forum in recent months as the beam of "cluons" is getting stronger than ever.

3) Trust is indeed "hard to gain", that's why Bitcoin is not in position to make some stupid moves without careful considerations of their potential impact on the future of the whole crypto-currency idea.

4) Moving to "something else" is just fine, I'm also watching this space from many different perspectives and consider a healthy competitive environment as a positive thing in general.

5) Of course, I do! And you too "Just Watch!"

There is nothing hard to change for the next blockchain specially if there is an economic incentive to do so PLUS real capacity limitations. There is nothing magical behind the bitcoin blockchain and if it can't deliver than be it. Trust is hard to gain but easy to loose. You won't be able to stop me and most of the market participant to move to something else and there will be no coming back. Just wait and watch.

Today's the day Mike went 100% cray cray. 

In other word: an ad hominem is not an ad hominem when I do it. Riiiight.