Topic: What are the downsides to 8MB blocks? (Read 5376 times)

I see your point.

I would like to define Bitcoin first as precisely as possible. Attention to details here is crucial.
Bitcoin was created as a "single PoW-secured transparent unified ledger runnable by users at home".
That's the niche it came here to fill and that's what it's known and valued for. This has proven itself to work.

Now, with technology constantly improving itself that niche continues to grow, while Bitcoin has approached its temporary limit.
We need to find a right balance between the two opposites here.

If we over-protect ourselves and let the gap between Bitcoin's current capacity and that of the home-based internet infrastructure grow too big,
the competition will take the chance and begin filling that niche not leaving any empty space for Bitcoin to grow further. That's where Bitcoin's game turns bleak.

If we, on the other hand, relax the idea of the limit by removing it altogether (or hooking it to the exponent), we might shift the incentives structure to the point, that the network will begin consolidating around high-bandwidth lanes, leaving the home-based demographic out of the picture. That's where Bitcoin stops being itself.

If we show ourselves undecided either way, chances are, that the network will split itself into two extremes outlined above and Bitcoin will have to accept a technical defeat. That's why Chess has a clock. Stall for too long and the game is over.

So, if it's shown that 8MB is a reasonable limit to satisfy the conditions above for the next 4-6 years, I argue, that we shouldn't target anything less.

The idea that global internet infrastructure might suddenly shrink is theoretically possible, but since we are targeting home internet connections here, I'm almost certain that 8MB should be workable across the ocean at any given moment. If it isn't (workable), then smaller blocks propagating faster will simply build a longer chain.

The biggest problem of a drastic change in block size is its lacking of consistency. People trust banks because they are very consistent and stable over decades, they never make sudden moves. Money is all about trust, without time tested trust, the value of bitcoin will stay at game level

When you plan an IT infrastructure's capacity, you never use more than 30% of its planned capacity, because you must leave lots of room for emergencies. So if average home bandwidth limit allow you to run 8MB blocks, then 2MB blocks will leave you enough room to deal with emergency situation where bandwidth suddenly dropped due to unforeseeable events (I still remember that during 2007 under sea fiber optic cables incident, there was almost no way that you can connect to Taiwan and Chinese mainland network in any speed higher than 56k dial up)

Ok, I see.

I wasn't aware of 2-4-8 programmed, so that might be another good candidate.
For as long as we don't keep the 1MB forever and instead provide competitive enough capacity in the category of PoW-secured single ledgers, we will stay in the game, the dynamics of which will be interesting to watch unfold.


Haha!

The only way to "solve the issue forever" is to get yourself out of the game and even that won't last very long.
There is no such thing as a permanent solution. The existential paradox keeps constantly resolving itself.

I will be blunt again and say that hard forks are healthy if done regularly but not too often.
Without them we will be constantly (mass-)debating about the issue.  

We need no more than 2 years to solve the issue forever. By then hopefully payment channels should be integrated in most wallets and easily accessible. Their use will be a no-brainer for the user as they will be considerably faster, cheaper and generally more efficient.

All the noobs now are scared because there is no immediate and obvious alternative for them to use to buy candies.

When we feed these shiny new toys to the reddit crowd I expect they stop pouting and shut up.

I think if we succeed with 2MB, and it goes smoothly, the next time will be much easier, because it won't be uncharted territory.
If that's deemed too conservative, we could do 2-4-8 programmed instead with doubling every 2 years. After all, we can alwasy soft-fork to lower limit, though I think it's inelegant.

Your space travel analogy is not that far fetched from reality.
But, I will be blunt and twist this way.

1) It's Bitcoin's first time. That's why there is so much confusion and hesitation.
Should we do it this way or that way? Maybe we should wait a little longer and see if the urge (stress-test) goes away?

The alternatives that we are presented with currently aren't very bright:
Turn Bitcoin into a hooker (XT-exponent), or let it become an old maid (Core-1MB).
I apologize if that doesn't fit the style of the conversation here, but the truth is the truth.

2) You might like another analogy a bit better. It's a game of Chess, and now is Bitcoin's turn to make a move.
The are multiple ways we can approach this issue, as there are multiple figures on the chessboard we can move.

The move to 8MB in question is intended to save one important figure on Bitcoin's side of the game.
We are talking about the first mover advantage here. If we allow the competition to gain enough momentum
as a transactional medium, we may never re-gain that due to the open source nature of the systems in question.

---

All in all, there is always some risk.
But that's why we love the game!

Yes, people also calculated that they can do space travel to another galaxy through a worm hole  

Until you have done a stress test under the real traffic, you would never know what kind of problem can arise. A small increase in the amount of the transaction might cause a total change in system's behavior. You can test the technical aspect of the network in a test lab, but you can never anticipate what real people would do when they detected there is a chance to clog and crash the network and greatly profit from it

A possible failure scenario: After raising the block size to 8 MB, there is nothing wrong, people start to develop new solutions and new business around the new blockchain, but after another 5 years, there is a heavy increase of the network traffic but the internet infrastructure upgrading has totally stopped due to a new financial crisis and recession, ISPs start to cut off bandwidth and charge more on it, then at that stage, you can not reduce the block size to cope with the network change, the whole network are under traffic jam for another 5 years

A service oriented mindset might not suitable for a monetary system, you should let people adopt to bitcoin, not let bitcoin adopt to people. Banks never adopt to people, but people worship them

I also thought about more conservative approach first, but then quickly realized that being over-protective would necessitate having this discussion (about the limit increase) more often than we want it to be.

In the extreme case, we will be constantly debating the issue and not let the actual limit to solidify in order for it to have any effect, which in turn would distract us from doing any other positive and creative things in the ecosystem.

If 8MB is considered unsafe, then we should look at how competition is currently surviving with higher limits (not blocks though). Of course, the counter argument in this case will be that their market cap and importance are less than that of Bitcoin and therefore there are no incentives to disturb the network by storming it with bigger blocks.

It's still somewhat uncertain, but if we demonstrate that we can agree on a single number and move forward, then the positive momentum in the ecosystem might encourage other players (like bandwidth-limited Chinese miners) to protect the network from bloating too fast by building on top of blocks that are not bigger than 2MB, for example.

That's the scenario I keep in mind when talking about 8MB limit.

The thing about the relay network is that it depends on miners behaving cooperatively. On the other hand, some game-theoretical research (e.g. selfish mining paper) suggests that this is not necessarily the most rational approach.
So, my point is that we must be very careful about changing these constants. I'd rather go with 2MB first, not 8MB, and then re-evaluate.

When there was a talk about 20MB blocks, people calculated that they would barely fit into the "total bandwidth per month cap" imposed by ISPs.
So, I assumed that 8MB should fit that situation better, provided that it is only a cap and not the actual block size for the next few years.


Ok, there are finally some good points here!
We definitely need some testing.

But if the "constant propagation time" for miners is true, why Chinese are then worried about the bandwidth with their 8MB figure?
What would prevent implementing the relay network for other full nodes and what was the rationale for not doing so in the first place?

Why exactly will they get orphaned? I consider this statement unfounded, because nowadays miners are able to propagate blocks between themselves in constant time (generally) with help of Matt Corallo's relay network. In turn, the nodes don't have this privilege, so we better have some testing, I guess.

No worries, miners whose bandwidth is almost unlimited can create their own altcoin and leave bitcoin  

A faster bandwidth coped with large blocks will separate you from majority of nodes, because majority of the nodes will not receive your block before they mined the next block (each relay of the block between two nodes will add 3-30 seconds delay depends on the network bandwidth, and there are many hops for a block to reach majority of nodes), so your block is always orphaned by the rest of the network, means your only choice is to fork your own coin

In fact, the size of the block is not limited by either core devs or miners, but ISPs around the world. I believe without major upgrade of internet infrastructure, the bitcoin network can not handle 2MB blocks well, not even mention 8MB

do you realize what this entails?

these guys have more than 50% of the hashing power!

of course that is what they are going to do: centralize.

centralize to improve their connectivity and abuse larger blocks by pushing the biggest ones they can make down the throat of other miners.

why don't they just join a pool? better yet they can keep mining that wtv pool they are currently mining at.

yes! bitcoin must be so low tech that every porn streamer can mine and stream at the same time.

or else i consider bitcoin mining centralized.

also if i can't get gramma into minning same result  i consider bitcoin mining centralized.

i believe to be considered decentralized, mining must be accessible to EVERYONE and i mean everyone. point final!


if you haven't caught on yet i'm just trolling the 1MBter's argument the requiring miners to download >1MB blocks will somehow centralize mining.

In the foreseeable future any occasional big blocks will likely get orphaned, so your concern is unfounded.
However, by the time the blocks are consistently big, the technology will already have improved to be able to handle them.
With static limit, big blocks now will become small blocks in the future and the process will have to repeat itself.

This is a good way to keep the system in check, allow it grow, while at the same time not let it spiral out of our hands.

False. The only reason why the first tx would still pay 1BTC fee is that because the owner didn't bother adjusting his fee policy. That's what's happening now with Bitcoin. The sole reason for it is block subsidy. As it diminishes, fees become more significant.
Bitcoin is nothing like centralized Paypal and can't be scaled the same way. Pointless comparison.

Do you know that it's exactly how Bitcoin is functioning? If you pay a fee too low, your tx will likely end up stuck.

That's a very bold statement, especially when you don't know 'my way'.

No, I assume they will be filled in order to model system's behaviour under these circumstances -- a part of engineering work, that you're downplaying under the premise that blocks aren't gonna be 8MB.
Let me maker it clear: blocks won't be full just because -- is a weak and pointless assumption. Good engineering must take care of extremes -- if we can support 8MB, then let's make sure the systems stays robust.

Don't exaggerate and twist my argument. Bottlenecks matter, especially network bottlenecks between miners, as they affect block propagation.

Once again, if the system is deemed unstable under 8MB blocks, then there's a clear reason for an attack.

Solved? Care to read my post once more? It's not solved, it's kicking the can down the road.

What's this advantage? Low fees? I guess not, it's main unique advantage is trustlessness. It holds a lot more value than cheap transactions, which can be routinely provided by many centralized solutions. And if it's under threat because of your idea that Bitcoin must be effectively free, I'd rather stick with trustlessness.
I wonder how you are gonna fund miners when the block subsidy diminishes. Haven't thought about that?
Jeez. The only thing past has shown us is that miners don't care about transaction fees much because of subsidy, while users don't bother adjusting their default fees. This will change in the future as fees become more significant relative to the block subsidy. With no limit, fees will gravitate to arbitrarily low near-zero values. I wonder how miners are gonna be funded. By 8GB blocks? No thanks, I don't think I'm interested in this kind of centralized Bitcoin.

Though the result of an artificial block size limit would nothing less than raising fees when the blocks are full most of the time. So microtransactions won't work anymore the way they were. So it doesn't really matter if the spam attacks artifically raised fees. With 1MB blocks blocks will be full all the time and one point. And that inevitably means rising fees.

As if the bitcoin network needs rising fees. Mining is so rewarding at the moment that we have 100 times more hashingpower than needed to secure the network. 100 times. Which translates to 1 transaction costing so much power like 1.75 average us households use in one whole day.

Sure, i can see why miners want to earn more or want their old miners still earn. But it is completely impossible to fight the blockhalving with rising fees too.

No worries. The remaining core developers say that bitcoiners that think that bitcoin fees became way to costly, transctions going through are uncertain and so on can use the great new altcoin sidechain lightning network and leave bitcoin.



Oh the irony.

How i hate how the bitcoin development has become a pool of politics that don't work on the main thing anymore but on their own little side project that they work for in reality. Corruption i would name that in the real world.

It's a pity.