Topic: The MAX_BLOCK_SIZE fork - page 8. (Read 35619 times)

For the record:

I'm on the "let there be no fixed maximum block size" side of the debate right now.

I think we should let miners decide on the maximum size of blocks that they'll build on. I'd like to see somebody come up with a model for time-to-transmit-and-receive-and-validate-a-block versus increased-chance-that-block-will-be-an-orphan.

Because that is the tradeoff that will keep miners from producing 1 Terabyte blocks (or, at least, would keep them from producing 1 Terabyte blocks right now-- if we have petabyte thumb-drives and Terabyte/second networks in 10 years maybe 1Terabyte blocks will be just fine).

Right now, miners that use the reference implementation and don't change any settings will produce blocks no larger than 250Kbytes big.

So we're finding out right now how miners collectively react to bumping up against a block size limit. I'd like to let that experiment run for at least a few months before arguing that we do or do not need to eliminate the 1MB hard limit, and start arguing about what the default rules for acceptable block size should be.

@jgarzik
I haven't a deep knowledge of the core of Bitcoin and the possibilities that cryptography can open, but I hope that these "layers" don't mean to centralize Bitcoin and then open new weaknesses.

The other thing isn't about the bitcoin dev team, but I saw other open source projects that died slowly because of the main team.
They were against many requests of the community, because they were convinced to already know "the best" to do or that they were already archived the best results. They were wrong.
I know that Bitcoin is different, it's really fragile, so every change needs a deep examination.
But I hope that doesn't stop you from see everyday if there are any possibilities to fix things today instead of tomorrow.

Boy that's a shortsighted analysis.

Bitcoin will grow layers above the base layer -- the blockchain -- that will enable instant transactions, microtransactions, and other scalable issues.

Do not think that the blockchain is the only way to transfer bitcoins.

Larger aggregators will easily compensate for current maximum block size in a scalable manner.

All nation-state/fiat currencies are multi-layer.  Too many people look at what bitcoin does now, and assume that those are the only currency services that will ever exist.

I thought I read this proposal here, but I don't find it anymore.

It could be introduces that all Blocks of Miners that use the Hardfork are somehow "marked".
As soon as a overwhelming majority of all Blocks (for Example 85%) is marked, a countdown starts and in 10.000 Blocks the Hardfork is activated.
This way Damage and Chaos could be minimized.

But I see no way how this could be "patched" without creating some damage, chaos and still a majority would have to agree to this in the first place, which also isn't ensured.

I also think there is importance to this, as it gets harder to implement this with each passing day.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm far from being an expert.




I think Bitcoin should be "patched" if possible. It would be devastating if we increase Bitcoin business further, finally get some Merchant on board, only to get to a point where it will become virtually impossible for a Merchant to use it.

Then when they are frustrated and dumping BTC we tell them, we now have a "better" cryptocurrency, so just use this instead.

This would mean back to field one for cryptocurrencys.

If the transaction fees are changed to algorithmically follow the block space as I expect would be an alternative solution to this, what will happen is that bitcoin will become expensive enough for an alternative crypto-currency to arise. An alternative to bitcoin which is cheaper will succeed and bitcoin will fail. Thus the only way to keep bitcoin alive is to allow for more volume, such that demand can be satisfied.

If it does ever come to bitcoin reaching it's limits, then I would be one to support another crypto-currency, as it would then be needed. I think this could be a good thing as it provides an opportunity to improve upon the many flaws of bitcoin with something new.

When you say "this" do you mean:

1) MAX_BLOCK_SIZE problem
2) problem with prevalence of white lies and other errors of omission in the Bitcoin milieu

?

Thanks.

I'm beginning to think you're absolutely right.  That scalability wiki page seems like a big fat lie too if block size can never be increased.  I'd really like someone who knows more than me to provide some reassurance here.  This seems like a very worrisome problem.



With any ideas on what the block size "should be", no matter how good they are, isn't the underlying problem that any change will require a hard fork?  Isn't the idea of a hard fork, especially for something this controversial, at this point in the game, basically impossible?

solex, +1.

A look at historical stats shows roughly:

   500 transactions occurred per day in Jan/Feb 2011,
 5000 per day in Jan/Feb 2012,
50000 per day in late Jan 2013, with an average block size of about 180Kb today (Feb 1st).

https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=1×pan=all&scale=1&address=

There is a logarithmic progression in transaction numbers which, if this continues, will see block saturation at 1Mb well before the end of 2013.

I think it is reasonable to call the max block size limit a "time bomb" within bitcoin. If this limit is reached many transactions will languish for hours or days. People will spread the word that bitcoin is breaking down resulting in negative publicity, panic selling and disinvestment, and websites dropping bitcoin. Perhaps the languishing transactions will then be processed, but great reputational damage will be done to a currency which should be as good as virtual gold.

The moral imperative must be to protect the utility and integrity of bitcoin for the public who are using it, the merchant websites accepting it, and the investors who are buying it to hold as an alternative to central bank fiat.

When I recently purchased some coins as an investment it was despite the block size limit being a negative factor. I thought it was a temporary restriction for sensible reasons like training wheels on a bicycle. 99% of bitcoin holders are unaware of it, and the crippling ramifications of it.
 
Akka's solution sounds very good, and it makes sense to include another important improvement as MatthewLM suggests.  I really hope that something can proceed as it would be a shame for bitcoin to suffer from an internal cause when so many external threats still exist.

Isn't it amazing the difference adding one small caveat makes. This is why I'd default to trusting Gavin's judgement, because everyone is trying to smash all of these ideas in his face and he has to make decisions that protect brialliant ideas from naive attacks. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/04/schneiers_law.html

Than change it to The average of the biggest 50% of all Blocks mined every 2016 Blocks. That would also mean that at least 50% of all miner would have to agree that a increase of the max. blocksize is necessary and also ensuring no minority can keep an increase from happening.

So (numbers changed a little):

Target: Average Blocksize of the biggest 1008 Blocks is always 90% of max. Blocksize
Adjustment: Max. Blocksize, max. +-20% all 2016 Blocks to meet this Target.


Blocktime all 10 minutes is fine by me. And there is no need to change this in any way IMO. I just ment if there would be say 1 Mil transactions a day, that would mean, that ~400 K each day would never be conformed, solely to the 1Mb limit and this would add up day by day.


I agree, but I would be far more comfortable with a solution that would fix this once and for all and would still work for any unforeseen challenges that might come in 50 Years.

The problem with this is that some pools still mine blocks where the only transaction is the one that awards them their subsidy, and that can really poison averages.

As far as using bitcoins in retail on a reasonable timeline goes, a few of the gambling sites have developed very good ways to prevent nasty stuff by identifying the low risk transactions which may as well be accepted immediately. I don't find the interval of time between blocks to be problematic.

Honestly as far as block size goes, I'm pretty comfortable with Gavin making a decision as benevolent dictator and letting everyone know at what point in the future the blocksize increases to its next finite (or formulaic) step.

I always thought two of the benefits of Bitcoin are:

Fast transactions
Low transaction fees

It seems, that thees points are outright Lies

If the blocksize limit isn't lifted and Bitcoin grows it will at one Point be virtually impossible to make transactions unless a ridiculous high transaction fee is paid.
I can't see how we can ask any merchant to accept Bitcoin, if it is clear that, unless Bitcoin remain a sideline payment system, at some point it will be impossible to accept Bitcoin for small payments.

So learning that changing the blocksize limit would require a hardfork gets me very concerned.

Also, I strongly disagree, that the 1MB blocksize limit is one of the principals of Bitcoin.

IMO it's scarcity of transaction space.

Therefore my Proposal:

Make the max blocksize a mathematical Function.

Lets say for example we set a Target, that the average Blocksize is always 80% of max. Blocksize and adjust the max. Blocksize by max. +-20% all 2016 Blocks to meet this Target.

This would ensure that Blockchain space always remains scarce, therefore ensuring TX fees for fast transaction, by at the same time ensuring that it will always be possible to make a transaction.

I'm looking forward to learn why this wouldn't work.

The Idea to calculate it by Blockrewar+Transactonfees is Great.

How much Reward do we need, to make Bitcoin ultimate save? And how much is not TOO much? I didnt think to long about it, but 1% is not to far away from good. So 1% of 20 million BTC is 200 000 Coins there are 144Blocks a day *360 Days in a Year. So every Block needs 3.9 BTC reward. (transactionfees are around 0.33 today) So i think there should be a rule that the blocksizelimit increases 5% if the Reward + Transactionfees were high enough in the last Difficultyphase, and decrase by maybe 5% if there wasnt enough reward to keep projected yeld at 1%.

We wont hit that limit for a long time....50 25 12.5 6.25 3.125 -> maybe in 16 Years.....so long blocksize is bound by hardwareability

Perhaps. A suicidal strategy, but a strategy nonetheless.

I don't blame you for not slumming it up with us little people who watch the altchain discussion. Freicoin was big news about a month ago until people realized it was just the lewest, pumpingest, and dumpingest of the altcoins. A full 80% of the initially issued goings flowing into a hardcoded developer controlled foundation which would take a hard fork (not quite sure if it is irony) to remove.

Apologies for the quality of the following linked thread https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/a-foundation-with-80-of-the-coins-can-never-work-134665

Subsidizing mining by demurrage may or may not be a good idea in a future cryptocurrency (probably a bad idea), but bitcoin's momentum and prestige by having substantial value is why these discussions over single technical issues inspire a lot of passion. This same affinity for the majority of bitcoin's traits and features means that any fork or altchain Joe Idea that incorporates their entire wish list of changes isn't going to be adopted by many people beyond Joe Idea, because for a majority Joe Idea's "improvements" are going to seem like a step backwards, if they don't think the changes broke everything they liked about the system.

I'm becoming very, very concerned about this 1MB block limit, especially since we're already seeing blocks that put us more than 25% of the way there.  A mere 7 transactions per second is nothing.  One particularly large online retailer does more than that alone.  If this limit is not increased somehow, and it sounds like it's not going to be possible, then I'm really afraid this will have a very negative impact on Bitcoin's ultimate value, utility, and security.

Just speaking hypothetically, suppose that:

* We're constantly capping out on the 1MB limit;
* We're at a point where the majority of miner's fees come from transaction fees;
* Mining has become optimally efficient such that marginal profit approaches zero.

In this scenario, competition for block space would be so fierce as to push transaction fees into the range of several dollars per KB.  It could also then take several hours to get some available block space, even with high fees.  I can't foresee it ever costing more than what a bank charges for a wire transfer, which at my bank is $30.  A wire is also pretty fast, so it's doubtful someone is going to pay more than $30 for a Bitcoin transfer and put up with waiting longer than it would take to do a bank wire.

At 7 tps, that's 604,800 transactions per day maximum.  At a maximum average fee of $30 per transaction, that's about $18.1 million per day in fees.  If we're assuming that mining will approach zero profit, including electricity, hardware depreciation, and R&D -- meaning that 100% of fees paid are going directly to the services needed to secure the network -- then the total annual investment in mining work will not exceed $6.6 billion.  As has been mentioned before, network strength should be measured in currency, not hash rate, because that's the actual cost an attacker would have to incur to break it.  So, in this scenario, we have a maximum network strength of $6.6 billion and it could never, ever be stronger than that without a lot of money being spent to run at a loss.  Pulling off a 51% attack would mean only slightly exceeding that.  If there's enough value being transacted to demand $30 transaction fees, then banks and governments will probably be somewhat irked that so much value is changing hands without them getting their cut.  $6.6 billion is pocket change for a bank or a government, especially because they'd see such a big return on investment from blocking all these direct transfers.

That's just from the security side of things.  From a utility point of view, once fees start to cost a few bucks, Bitcoin is going to look like a pretty lousy way to pay for most everyday items, and credit cards will look cheap again -- even with their massive fraud rate.

I don't know enough about how all the pieces work, but it sure seems to me like we need a lot more than a 1MB limit...and quick.  Can someone tell me what I'm missing here or reassure me that I have no idea what I'm talking about and that everything will be fine?

Jeweller, thank you for your great questions, I’ll endeavour to answer them.

First I wish to point out that that I believe that a bitcoin-like protocol that has no block-size limit. Where the miners choose the ‘best block’ based upon two factors: block size and difficulty, would be still economically secure. I suggest miners would orphan blocks that are too-large (thus too-expensive to maintain). (The network would find some sort of equilibrium).

If I was to pull out the continuous issue here:
Max_Block_Size is both a network and economic issue.

Changing the max block size has real economic consequences that can be split into two areas:  Fees and Uses.

Fees:
While I don’t think that the network needs a low Max_Block_Size to remain secure, that shouldn’t be up to my own analysis.  People may have invested into Bitcoin because they believe the 1MB limit to be the value required to maintain a secure network.

We don't know if Bitcoin had a different limit if they would have invested in the first place OR NOT.

Uses:
In 10-years, a modern smartphone/computer will be able to run the full processing node if the Max_Block_Size remains 1MB.  This is a clear economic benefit for Bitcoin: Decentralized Bitcoin verification.  In fact in a few years, virtually every computer will be able to process the entire blockchain without issue thus making Bitcoin extremely unique in the realm of payments.

We don't know if Bitcoin had a different limit if they would have invested in the first place OR NOT.


So I believe that the Max_Block_Size is clearly a moral issue, more than a practical issue.  Just like the Maximum Bitcoins, or Generation Rates.




Keep on using the smaller chain.  Although I could double spend my coins in the larger chain for my own benefit.


Yes.

If it is better for my purposes than Bitcoin I would move over.  However I believe that the network effect will be that bitcoin is always my first store of value.

Sorry, I said this badly. My point is, even if transaction fees amount to tens of thousands of dollars daily, as the current block reward does, who has more incentive to run mining equipment? People going after a fraction of those fees, or people trying to protect their billions of dollars of savings?  Transaction fees are not the only incentive to run mining equipment.

IIRC, a couple years ago there was a buffer overflow bug that required an emergency hard forking change to fix.  I think there was one more that was rolled out gradually over a couple years, but I don't care enough to look it up for you.

Perhaps Mike didn't notice your demand that he address your point because he (understandably) has you on his ignore list.