You are basing your conclusion of a supposed need for 2mb blocks on facts that do not exist... there is no clogging of the bitcoin blockchain, except for the extent to which some miners must be directing their hashpower to make such appearances of clogging... such recent precipitous rise and then drop in mempool back up seems abundantly obvious evidence that the clogging of the mempool is not based on some kind of actual organic growth - but instead is a fabricated situation that would not be solved by a mere doubling of the blocksize limit.. and therefore a doubling of the size of the blocksize limit would likely cause more troubles than it resolves.
So, yeah, it is possible that some day there is going to exist a situation in which a hard increase of the blocksize limit might be necessary, but it is not even close to being true in today's level of bitcoin usage... and surely it will be interesting to witness how segwit plays out and whether any of that would cause any changes in the blocksize usage, either in one direction or another.
Well blocks have been increasing in size and fees have been rising. For sure I agree that this has not been organic, and has been a deliberate attempt to force the issue. There is is no doubt there is/was a huge volume of spam transactions, but both the big block AND segwit sides could have been doing it or indeed both of them to show that their solution was needed.
But if you look at the situation now, the mempool has shrunk from it's highs of over 100k to currently around 12k, but fees are still high at 270 sats/byte and there is still a backlog forcing these fees.
I disagree that doubling the blocksize wouldn't have helped, at it's simplest level the cost for the 'spammers' would have doubled to maintain the backlog, yes they may have done that, but then if the premise is that it's the big blockers spamming to force their solution then why would they need to spam once they had it, and once we are post segwit there would be no need for the small block side to do it either.
What matters to me is how quick it takes to confirm a transaction and how much it costs.
And that will likely shape the coming battle, if post-segwit doesn't live up to the hype and significantly reduce both then it makes it more likely that the 2MB part will go through, or if it does help a lot then maybe the desire for bigger blocks will wane.
I just want a long term solution which this agreement isn't, but it's better than nothing.
Yeah but you are not really addressing the elephant in the room - and that this issue has been used as an attempt to change governance... there are pissed off people, and they would likely not even be satisified with a 2mb increase.. .. and also doing this as a hardfork, would need a really high level of consensus...
So you really believe that any decentralized and open source system, such as bitcoin is going to move into a kind of la la land with a lot of hugs and harmony if there is some kind of segwit 2x that gets implemented this year? There will be whining about something else and a lot of these big blocker nut jobs are just emotional about the process that core has been following and the apparent power dynamics and influence that some voices have within core.. .. so there seems to be a kind of emotional hatred that is not really a technical solution but a desire for a coupe, no?
That's why we get several emotional poster nutjobs with a seeming agenda that is not really very topical but just want to assert how much they hate core, they want core to disappear and diminish, whatever the fuck that means.
I have issues with the way UASF means to go about it. This is the only reason why I distrust their motives. Furthermore, mutual distrust is at the Core of Bitcoin. So it bears no significance how long have Devs proven their worth or not. Only the way to Consensus matters.
If they wanted to really put it up to choice, they would have hardforked. The merits of a soft work fall short when you put into perspective that hardforking without a 95% approval would actually mean they would be activating SegWit on an alt-coin. I understand this is a risk they cannot take.
They are counting on the remaining Miners to also keep that in mind. Everyone wants to keep Bitcoin.
Well, as long as noone conclusively wins outright, we will have a standoff that will leave Miners on Legacy Chain very much obliged to slowly move towards UASF chain with the growing risk of reorg.
As long as BIP 148 is within 51% minus the biggest MINER marketshare, all other Miners have the incentive to change. Because they can get outmined or outsmarted by the biggest Miner if he jumps ship first.
Basically, they are counting on Miners to have no choice but to Hard Fork, and then say BIP 148 is Bitcoin because they soft forked it, or instead, to go with BIP 148 if they want to keep "BITCOIN". The other solution is that Miners activate SegWit before August 1.
It is a brilliant plan that leaves little choice. But it is sadly coercion and not consensus. I am saddened by the precedent and how the community is so drowned In anti-Miner sentiment that they are oblivious to the lengths they are going to to get what they want. Cut-throat politics have arrived. Brace yourselves.
I hope for the sake of Bitcoin that this doesn't work and a real consensus can be formed.
