Topic: WARNING! Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs - page 4. (Read 58538 times)

The assumption that SatoshiDICE is 'abusing' the blockchain is patently false. It's a consent driven network - users should be able to use it in any way they like without artificial barriers like this being put in place.

As for handwaving (and unicorns) - There are solutions that would be possible given existing tech and being novel in it's application and methods.

If bitcoin goes this route it will doom itself to a series of hard forks followed by eventual regulation and failure. Instead of trying band-aid fixes lets actually address the problem which is (blockchain) size. How much of it would a client actually need to store? What about compressing the blockchain after the fact... simple groupings of balances by value as an index might help for starters. I really doubt we're storing it in the most effecient way possible.

Another thing is - once you've got the network agreeing on a truncated format for old (archived?) blocks - it's easy enough for someone to later use the dust - all that changes is that entry would be absent from the value index at the next demarkation.

So lets start thinking in terms abstracting the blocks in the chain once they get past a certian 'age' and actually develop a technical solution instead of heading down this road.

No none of that is in the raw transaction.  That is simply formatting to make it easier for humans (like you) to parse the transaction. The format is somewhat complex but simplified version is take only the data above remove all formatting, white space , brackets, quotes, and all text.  That is the transaction.

Doh! Just truncate BTC amounts to zero which are less than US 1 cent equivalent! And don't send that particular payment.
That is what every other company in the world does. Ever received a dividend check for 0.78c?
Just leave a credit amount on the client's account until/if it ever gets absorbed into other larger transactions.

its all the data above, but packed in a binary format.

the proposal is not to reduce a single transactions size. But let nodes choose which transactions which they want to receive, thus reducing bandwidth.

This has nothing to do with blockchain size however even the PRUNED blockchain needs the UXTO.  In economical transactions outputs have a high probability of being spent (become inputs on new transactions) thus while the blockchain may grow very fast the UXTO grows much slower.  This is a far more critical resource and will remain so even in the block limit is raised 10x or 100x larger.  

Uneconomical transactions (transactions which would require a fee larger than the value of the output to spend) are almost never spent.  Roughly half of the UXTO is transactions below 1 mBTC and roughly a quarter is below 0.01mBTC.  Since users will probably never spend them they remain unspent outputs and thus can't be pruned away.  They are necessary to validate blocks on the off chance someone ever does spend them in the future.  Nodes can't forget about them because it would be erasing Bitcoins and worse if some nodes did and some didn't then you would have a hardfork.

This means every node pays a perpetual cost for a transactions which never made economical sense to begin with.  

0.8.2 doesn't prevent spending dust it prevents (for nodes which agree to the default) relaying and including in blocks transaction which create NEW dust where dust is defined at 54.3% of min mandatory fee on low priority transactions.   

A "solution" of this type would simply not be bitcoin.  An ever increasing blockchain is an integral part of the system that you bought into.  Any other solution is no longer the zero-trust system Satoshi invented and that we all bought into.

Further, you cannot handwave away the problem that, if transactions is infinitesimally cheap, people will abuse the system by sending non-currency data messages. Lots of them. Gigabytes worth, as other alt-chain field experience has proven. To the point that bitcoin-the-currency transactions are impacted.

"I want a system that can process infinite amounts of traffic" is in the land of unicorns.

The accusation of dev laziness is particularly rich, given that SatoshiDICE abused the blockchain in this way, by sending informational messages (IM "You lost a bet") via the blockchain.

If you want an infinite amount of transactions per 10 minutes, you have just reinvented the Internet... over the blockchain. Poorly.

All that said, block chain size has an easy solution for the individual user -- use an SPV wallet.  And for the medium term, there are plans for distinguishing between archive nodes (those that store the full chain) and validating nodes (pruned).

Yeah, this change is causing problems for me as well on EMC.  I definitely do not support it at this point.

I agree with Firefop.  A solution needs to be found that addresses the problem, not covers it up and ignores it.  At some point, even large transactions are going to bloat the block chain if bitcoin becomes popular enough... so it's a problem regardless of transaction size.

Even sendmany is rejecting payments less than the specified amount, when there are many, many other, larger values - that makes absolutely no sense.

This entire idea of limiting the size of transaction is a non-solution solution. Pure developer laziness imo. What really needs to be developed is a technical solution to the ever increasing block-chain-size. Some sort of native client support for truncating it in some way (while still having the option to get/keep the entire thing). Then the 'dust' as we're calling it can fall where it may according to free-market principles.

I will not be supporting this change and encouraging the bitcoin users I know to do the same.

That, or resort to a "spinoff" like http://www.coinbox.me/ ..

Or just .... I don't know dispense 0.06 mBTC or more at once (I know an utterly staggering sum of roughly half a penny).

Good. They were just inflating the blockchain anyhow.

All the faucet sites have to implement off chain money boxes now

Is there a huge "real" (i.e. non trolling) demand to pay people tiny fractions of a penny either on or off blockchain?  I would guess not and thus it won't jumpstart anything.

Does the push for eliminating dust raise the desire for off-chain transactions? I should think this would jumpstart off chain efforts.

I don't mean to make any enemies but if this is what people are getting upset over then bitcoin has made it.

I still haven't bought any, but I've played at some faucet sites just to get some practice currency, you know, make sure I can wipe my client data and restore.

Even they payed me more than the cutoff limit, and not by a small amount.

I don't think this is a big deal and bitcoin-qt isn't the only client in town. Use another if you don't like it.

LOL. But even those are larger than the 0.000054

Used to be able to get candy for 1 cent, occasionally 3 for a cent, in the days before the inflation megatrend.

Umm, apparently there were some guys from india at the conference that said they needed transactions in the rupees range.

I don't know what a cup of coffee costs in Bangalore but I can't imagine it is that much once the conversion is done ...

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=India&city=Bangalore

Smallest atomic unit here seems to 0.33L bottle of water at 15 rupees (about 0.0022 btc) ... although there is 1 min. of Prepaid Mobile Tariff Local (No Discounts or Plans) for 1 Rps. (about 0.00015 btc)

Yes. And...


silence on this, so far.

I agree! I don't understand the querulous people. Bitcoin still suitable for micro transactions. But 54 uBTC is 0.000054 which is 0.006728 USD in the current exchange rate.

Micro transaction is 0.99 USD or 0.50 USD or 0.25 USD. Maybe 0.01-0.10 USD. But less than 0.01 USD is not micro. It is dust. Fragments.

By the way, the banks steal the cent fragments. The client only blocks them until their value increases enough.

I think it is kind of misleading, since a Satoshi will always be  (and always be known as) .00000001 bitcoins.