Author

Topic: [poll] Quick! Put more chewing gum in Bitcoin's Velocity lever!... (Read 929 times)

hero member
Activity: 775
Merit: 1000

Ahh yup. We're talking about 2 completely different problems here. Things like the size of the whole block-chain, download times, propagation times for new blocks -- those technical challenges can all be readily solved/improved. But this thread alludes to an Economic feature built-in to Bitcoin. Namely, if nobody touches the design, and Bitcoin usage keeps growing, miners should (if they're smart enough Roll Eyes ) learn to manage Velocity and help dampen speculative bubbles and make the charts much less embarrassing.

It only dawned on me recently: one of the reasons the BTC exchange rate has always been so volatile is because there has been too much spare capacity in each block. This allowed small miners (less than 1% hashing power) to effectively break the market for transaction fees. Instead of working smartly to maximise profits, they just brutally accept as many transactions as possible, which cranks velocity up to 11, and leaves all the other miners stranded and unable to slow things down. Obviously the pools can try to adjust transaction rates... but they would only be able to influence very fast spikes and dips. All the longer trends would be firmly in the hands of... you guessed it: anyone reckless enough to fill up a whole block with free transactions.

Now that Bitcoin has grown so much that the spare capacity in each block is no longer "dangerously" big and exploitable by rogue miners... some people are talking about drastically increasing the block size, and some are suggesting making it dynamic but out of the hands of miners "because they can't be trusted". Roll Eyes

You seem pretty sure that increasing the blocksize will kill Bitcoin - sure enough that you don't provide any poll option for it happening and not creating a catastrophe.

Any particular reason you feel that way?

Hmm, I guess I should have been more objective and less driven by emotion when creating the poll. Does the above answer your question? (Can you tell that I'm a panic-buyer/seller? Cheesy )
legendary
Activity: 960
Merit: 1028
Spurn wild goose chases. Seek that which endures.
You seem pretty sure that increasing the blocksize will kill Bitcoin - sure enough that you don't provide any poll option for it happening and not creating a catastrophe.

Any particular reason you feel that way?
legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1002
legendary
Activity: 1666
Merit: 1057
Marketing manager - GO MP
To be optimistic I'd say: "A consensus will be reached to leave the Blocksize as it is now and let Bitcoin reach maturity."
hero member
Activity: 775
Merit: 1000
Jump to: