Storage and internet bandwidth are not really an issue these days. The real issue is the CPU resources used during block validation. Every new block that a node receives has to be validated against the known blockchain. This includes blocks that a new node downloads for the very first time. Some idiots are still running nodes on Raspberry Pis or Beagle Bones. When/if we move to 8MB, these nodes will not be able to cope with the larger blocks in a reasonable amount of time.
If you run a p2pool node and bitcoin node on the same machine (like I did), you already see a problem today when 1MB blocks come in and you are running anything less than a 4-core current generation CPU. My solution was to run p2pool and bitcoind on separate i7 machines, which was a pain in the ass but my setup can now handle 1MB blocks without too many orphans of p2pool shares.
Topic: What are the downsides to 8MB blocks? - page 5. (Read 5376 times)
no bandwidth problem. no storage problem.
i would like to see mass adoption. i would like to follow satoshis view of big blocks. i would like to have a permission less and cheap blockchain (cheap transactions) for everybody in the world.
look at Nielsen's Law:
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/law-of-bandwidth/
we dont talk about 100 MB blocks tomorrow - we talk about 6, 8 or 16 MB blocks in a few years (and it takes time to even fill them).
hundreds of millions of people can support such nodes today. no problem.
i would like to see mass adoption. i would like to follow satoshis view of big blocks. i would like to have a permission less and cheap blockchain (cheap transactions) for everybody in the world.
look at Nielsen's Law:
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/law-of-bandwidth/
we dont talk about 100 MB blocks tomorrow - we talk about 6, 8 or 16 MB blocks in a few years (and it takes time to even fill them).
hundreds of millions of people can support such nodes today. no problem.
Nielsen's (Folk) Law is bounded by Gibson's Razor:
"The future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed."
See my lengthy, well-researched response to you here for Important Details.
no bandwidth problem. no storage problem.
i would like to see mass adoption. i would like to follow satoshis view of big blocks. i would like to have a permission less and cheap blockchain (cheap transactions) for everybody in the world.
look at Nielsen's Law:
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/law-of-bandwidth/
we dont talk about 100 MB blocks tomorrow - we talk about 6, 8 or 16 MB blocks in a few years (and it takes time to even fill them).
hundreds of millions of people can support such nodes today. no problem.
i would like to see mass adoption. i would like to follow satoshis view of big blocks. i would like to have a permission less and cheap blockchain (cheap transactions) for everybody in the world.
look at Nielsen's Law:
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/law-of-bandwidth/
we dont talk about 100 MB blocks tomorrow - we talk about 6, 8 or 16 MB blocks in a few years (and it takes time to even fill them).
hundreds of millions of people can support such nodes today. no problem.
Downsides...... 8mb block take much time to spread throughout the bitcoin network or block chain.
There are many places in world where Internet is costly and speed is also not good.
So according to me, this is a downside.
There are many places in world where Internet is costly and speed is also not good.
So according to me, this is a downside.
My admittedly very limited understanding: Currently because of the limited block sizes the bitcoin network could never handle the traffic if a large amount of new bitcoin users came online and started using bitcoin. The network would be so slow that people would not have a very good experience.
The solution to this is to increase the block size to 8 MB per block allowing for many more transactions and a much faster network capable of handling an event in which a large amount of new users start using bitcoin.
I don't know of the downside though. Why are so many people against this? I don't understand.
The solution to this is to increase the block size to 8 MB per block allowing for many more transactions and a much faster network capable of handling an event in which a large amount of new users start using bitcoin.
I don't know of the downside though. Why are so many people against this? I don't understand.
8MB doesn't allow for "for many more transactions" only ~8 times the current (extremely low) number.
You can't scale by adding more of the same. More of the same risks negative marginal returns, which is why that approach is called "bloating."
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I have to say, I can't see what the exact point is to keep the blocks at 1mb.
Neither can I. I believe we need a gradual rise which is compatible with technology improvement. 15-20% a year looks reasonable to me. XT's proposal doesn't. This is a good question, I've also wanted to clearly know the answer to this.
What about companies that have API's or have built something connected to the blockchain? Will they have to do something at the fork? All of them? Because I imagine that would be a nightmare to do every two years.
Or is it not like that?
What about companies that have API's or have built something connected to the blockchain? Will they have to do something at the fork? All of them? Because I imagine that would be a nightmare to do every two years.
Or is it not like that?
An increase in size of the blocks changes nothing to the nodes and daemons, only, of course, in the main mining code.
Ah, thanks for the answer.
After reading quite a lot of stuff about the block size, and in particular a post by Litecoin guy, I have to say, I can't see what the exact point is to keep the blocks at 1mb. I mean, in the long run Bitcoin will stand to lose more than it will gain by not adapting.
I'm no miner so I know I basically don't know, but as far as I can understand it, Bitcoin needs bigger blocks, and even if it needs bigger blocks in the future and another fork, then so what?
PC hardware was never designed to be upgraded in the first place, but it was built on... and on... and on. It wasn't the end of the world, quite the opposite in fact.
I remember when I was using a 1k 'computer'. You couldn't even fart with 1k nowadays.
The long debate over the bitcoin block size is over. The updates being done to the bitcoin code have been published by the core developer Gavin Andresen on GitHub. The block size will change from 1MB to 8MB, with further doubling every two years – so in 2018, it will reach 16 MB, then 32MB in 2020 and so on.
Will this make it into Bitcoin Core as well, or is there still a discrepancy between Core and XT ?If so, exactly who or what still prevents the above patch to make it into Bitcoin Core? (i.e. so we can all stick with just ONE Bitcoin version)
Chinese mining pools seem to have played the decisive role in the debate. As CoinFox wrote recently, a joint statement of BTCChina, Huobi, F2Pool, BW and Antpool favoured a compromise – an increase of the block size to 8MB instead of 20MB.
The long debate over the bitcoin block size is over. The updates being done to the bitcoin code have been published by the core developer Gavin Andresen on GitHub. The block size will change from 1MB to 8MB, with further doubling every two years – so in 2018, it will reach 16 MB, then 32MB in 2020 and so on.
2016: 8 MB
2018: 16 MB
2020: 32 MB
2022: 64 MB
2024: 128 MB
....
Quote
China’s five largest mining pools gathered at the National Conference Center in Beijing to hold a technical discussion about the ramifications of increasing the max block size on the Bitcoin network. ....
The bitcoin miners of China agree that the blocksize must be increased, but we believe that increasing to 8MB first is the most reasonable course of action. We believe that 20MB blocks will cause a high orphan rate for miners, leading to hard forks down the road. If the bitcoin community can come to a consensus to upgrade to 8MB blocks first, we believe that this lays a strong foundation for future discussions around the block size. At present, China’s five largest mining pools account for more than 60% of the network hashrate.
The bitcoin miners of China agree that the blocksize must be increased, but we believe that increasing to 8MB first is the most reasonable course of action. We believe that 20MB blocks will cause a high orphan rate for miners, leading to hard forks down the road. If the bitcoin community can come to a consensus to upgrade to 8MB blocks first, we believe that this lays a strong foundation for future discussions around the block size. At present, China’s five largest mining pools account for more than 60% of the network hashrate.
The long debate over the bitcoin block size is over. The updates being done to the bitcoin code have been published by the core developer Gavin Andresen on GitHub. The block size will change from 1MB to 8MB, with further doubling every two years – so in 2018, it will reach 16 MB, then 32MB in 2020 and so on.
2016: 8 MB
2018: 16 MB
2020: 32 MB
2022: 64 MB
2024: 128 MB
....
finally. a good and conservativ approach.
Do larger blocks give an advantage to the larger mining pools? Ex. Getting some sort of edge on mining the next block after finding one, seeing that the blocks will be larger?
Larger blocks give an advantage to larger and better connected pools, so they can propagate them faster. The propagation bottlenecks can fragment the network, where one larger well-intra-connected part (read: China) will be winning more orphan races, thus earning relatively more money -- creating financial incentives for further centralization.
Do larger blocks give an advantage to the larger mining pools? Ex. Getting some sort of edge on mining the next block after finding one, seeing that the blocks will be larger?
Chinese mining pools seem to have played the decisive role in the debate. As CoinFox wrote recently, a joint statement of BTCChina, Huobi, F2Pool, BW and Antpool favoured a compromise – an increase of the block size to 8MB instead of 20MB.
The long debate over the bitcoin block size is over. The updates being done to the bitcoin code have been published by the core developer Gavin Andresen on GitHub. The block size will change from 1MB to 8MB, with further doubling every two years – so in 2018, it will reach 16 MB, then 32MB in 2020 and so on.
2016: 8 MB
2018: 16 MB
2020: 32 MB
2022: 64 MB
2024: 128 MB
....
Quote
China’s five largest mining pools gathered at the National Conference Center in Beijing to hold a technical discussion about the ramifications of increasing the max block size on the Bitcoin network. ....
The bitcoin miners of China agree that the blocksize must be increased, but we believe that increasing to 8MB first is the most reasonable course of action. We believe that 20MB blocks will cause a high orphan rate for miners, leading to hard forks down the road. If the bitcoin community can come to a consensus to upgrade to 8MB blocks first, we believe that this lays a strong foundation for future discussions around the block size. At present, China’s five largest mining pools account for more than 60% of the network hashrate.
The bitcoin miners of China agree that the blocksize must be increased, but we believe that increasing to 8MB first is the most reasonable course of action. We believe that 20MB blocks will cause a high orphan rate for miners, leading to hard forks down the road. If the bitcoin community can come to a consensus to upgrade to 8MB blocks first, we believe that this lays a strong foundation for future discussions around the block size. At present, China’s five largest mining pools account for more than 60% of the network hashrate.
The long debate over the bitcoin block size is over. The updates being done to the bitcoin code have been published by the core developer Gavin Andresen on GitHub. The block size will change from 1MB to 8MB, with further doubling every two years – so in 2018, it will reach 16 MB, then 32MB in 2020 and so on.
2016: 8 MB
2018: 16 MB
2020: 32 MB
2022: 64 MB
2024: 128 MB
....
finally. a good and conservativ approach.
There are some problems with bigger blocks, as far as I can understand bigger blocks means:
1. You need to have more HDD place to store bigger blockchain.
2. Transactions fees will be actually higher, RIP bitcoin microtransactions.
3. Higher blocks also requires higher internet bandwidth.
This is WRONG, well at least #2 is, Transaction fees won't be higher since there is more room per block and you won't be fighting to get in next block (this is what leads to higher fees) 1. You need to have more HDD place to store bigger blockchain.
2. Transactions fees will be actually higher, RIP bitcoin microtransactions.
3. Higher blocks also requires higher internet bandwidth.
There aren't many downsides to 8MB blocks currently, almost all major pools agree and so do the users. The current issue is trying to figure out how to go about switching to them, this is the currently debated issue.
Personally I believe that this well overestimating the rate internet connection-speeds and hard-disk space will grow. Just look at ADSL or even cable for instance.
I don't think storage will ever be much of an issue. Bandwidth sure as shit is and they seem to be a little casual about that with the ever increasing block size proposal.
Nothing you can do about it yourself. You have to wait for your friendly phone company to come around and do some digging up and install major hardware upgrades.
My bandwidth is unchanged in over a decade and there's nothing on the horizon either. It suits my purposes fine but it's not going to like running a node in such a future.
Actually I don't think bandwith is that much of an issue. It will take a bit longer to sync but that's that, the worst part will be downloading the blockchain the first time, then if you open it daily is not that bad.
With my connection speed the block chain will be downloaded in 4 to 5 days or maybe take a week.
Currently I've installed new os on my pc and electrum is also taking a while to synchronize.
Why didn't you make a backup? It took me 4/5 hours last time I downloaded the blockchain.
I have backed up the private keys and seed but never knew about backing up the blockchain.
i have had trouble trying to get a node up and running as it is.
Yes 8 Mb is the max size and blocks won't always be that big, but in general we will start to see many blocks greater than the current 1 Mb size.
It will start to take node hosting out of the realm of the average punter lending his spare disk space and CPU cycles "for the good of the network"
I haven't figured where I stand on this yet: support or reject the increase the blocksize increase, support buying lattes with altcoins (this is not an altogether stupid idea), the whole thing is doing my head in.
The Visa or Paypal network transfers a huge number of transactions per minute. If Bitcoin went that viral are node hosters going to store that magnitude of transactions on their home PC? Home PCs using ADSL are not quite the type of infrastructure that could handle anything like that, not to mention the inefficiencies that decentralization brings.
This is a serious problem that poses philosophical as well as technical questions. Not even Andresen has presented a convincing argument on this topic.
I believe the final solution to this problem has not yet been formulated.
Personally I believe that this well overestimating the rate internet connection-speeds and hard-disk space will grow. Just look at ADSL or even cable for instance.
I don't think storage will ever be much of an issue. Bandwidth sure as shit is and they seem to be a little casual about that with the ever increasing block size proposal.
Nothing you can do about it yourself. You have to wait for your friendly phone company to come around and do some digging up and install major hardware upgrades.
My bandwidth is unchanged in over a decade and there's nothing on the horizon either. It suits my purposes fine but it's not going to like running a node in such a future.
Actually I don't think bandwith is that much of an issue. It will take a bit longer to sync but that's that, the worst part will be downloading the blockchain the first time, then if you open it daily is not that bad.
With my connection speed the block chain will be downloaded in 4 to 5 days or maybe take a week.
Currently I've installed new os on my pc and electrum is also taking a while to synchronize.
Why didn't you make a backup? It took me 4/5 hours last time I downloaded the blockchain.
Personally I believe that this well overestimating the rate internet connection-speeds and hard-disk space will grow. Just look at ADSL or even cable for instance.
I don't think storage will ever be much of an issue. Bandwidth sure as shit is and they seem to be a little casual about that with the ever increasing block size proposal.
Nothing you can do about it yourself. You have to wait for your friendly phone company to come around and do some digging up and install major hardware upgrades.
My bandwidth is unchanged in over a decade and there's nothing on the horizon either. It suits my purposes fine but it's not going to like running a node in such a future.
Actually I don't think bandwith is that much of an issue. It will take a bit longer to sync but that's that, the worst part will be downloading the blockchain the first time, then if you open it daily is not that bad.
With my connection speed the block chain will be downloaded in 4 to 5 days or maybe take a week.
Currently I've installed new os on my pc and electrum is also taking a while to synchronize.
Personally I believe that this well overestimating the rate internet connection-speeds and hard-disk space will grow. Just look at ADSL or even cable for instance.
I don't think storage will ever be much of an issue. Bandwidth sure as shit is and they seem to be a little casual about that with the ever increasing block size proposal.
Nothing you can do about it yourself. You have to wait for your friendly phone company to come around and do some digging up and install major hardware upgrades.
My bandwidth is unchanged in over a decade and there's nothing on the horizon either. It suits my purposes fine but it's not going to like running a node in such a future.
Actually I don't think bandwith is that much of an issue. It will take a bit longer to sync but that's that, the worst part will be downloading the blockchain the first time, then if you open it daily is not that bad.
Chinese mining pools seem to have played the decisive role in the debate. As CoinFox wrote recently, a joint statement of BTCChina, Huobi, F2Pool, BW and Antpool favoured a compromise – an increase of the block size to 8MB instead of 20MB.
The long debate over the bitcoin block size is over. The updates being done to the bitcoin code have been published by the core developer Gavin Andresen on GitHub. The block size will change from 1MB to 8MB, with further doubling every two years – so in 2018, it will reach 16 MB, then 32MB in 2020 and so on.
2016: 8 MB
2018: 16 MB
2020: 32 MB
2022: 64 MB
2024: 128 MB
2026: 256MB
2028: 512 MB
2030: 1024 MB
2032: 2048 MB
2034: 4096 MB
Personally I believe that this well overestimating the rate internet connection-speeds and hard-disk space will grow. Just look at ADSL or even cable for instance.
4096 MB per 10minutes in a year will grow to: 205TB per year worth of storage.
I wonder if they took in account the laws of physics in this equation. It is not impossible but who can and will pay for such an investment just to be a unpaid bitcoin client (full node).
Quote
China’s five largest mining pools gathered at the National Conference Center in Beijing to hold a technical discussion about the ramifications of increasing the max block size on the Bitcoin network. In attendance were F2Pool, BW, BTCChina, Huobi.com, and Antpool. After undergoing deep consideration and discussion, the five pools agree that while the block size does need to be increased, a compromise should be made to increase the network max block size to 8 megabytes. We believe that this is a realistic short term adjustment that remains fair to all miners and node operators worldwide.
Why upgrade to 8MB but not 20MB?
1.Chinese internet bandwidth infrastructure is not built out to the same advanced level as those found in other countries.
2.Chinese outbound bandwidth is restricted; causing increased latency in connections between China & Europe or the US.
3.Not all Chinese mining pools are ready for the jump to 20MB blocks, and fear that this could cause an orphan rate that is too high.
The bitcoin miners of China agree that the blocksize must be increased, but we believe that increasing to 8MB first is the most reasonable course of action. We believe that 20MB blocks will cause a high orphan rate for miners, leading to hard forks down the road. If the bitcoin community can come to a consensus to upgrade to 8MB blocks first, we believe that this lays a strong foundation for future discussions around the block size. At present, China’s five largest mining pools account for more than 60% of the network hashrate.
Why upgrade to 8MB but not 20MB?
1.Chinese internet bandwidth infrastructure is not built out to the same advanced level as those found in other countries.
2.Chinese outbound bandwidth is restricted; causing increased latency in connections between China & Europe or the US.
3.Not all Chinese mining pools are ready for the jump to 20MB blocks, and fear that this could cause an orphan rate that is too high.
The bitcoin miners of China agree that the blocksize must be increased, but we believe that increasing to 8MB first is the most reasonable course of action. We believe that 20MB blocks will cause a high orphan rate for miners, leading to hard forks down the road. If the bitcoin community can come to a consensus to upgrade to 8MB blocks first, we believe that this lays a strong foundation for future discussions around the block size. At present, China’s five largest mining pools account for more than 60% of the network hashrate.
The long debate over the bitcoin block size is over. The updates being done to the bitcoin code have been published by the core developer Gavin Andresen on GitHub. The block size will change from 1MB to 8MB, with further doubling every two years – so in 2018, it will reach 16 MB, then 32MB in 2020 and so on.
2016: 8 MB
2018: 16 MB
2020: 32 MB
2022: 64 MB
2024: 128 MB
2026: 256MB
2028: 512 MB
2030: 1024 MB
2032: 2048 MB
2034: 4096 MB
Personally I believe that this well overestimating the rate internet connection-speeds and hard-disk space will grow. Just look at ADSL or even cable for instance.
4096 MB per 10minutes in a year will grow to: 205TB per year worth of storage.
I wonder if they took in account the laws of physics in this equation. It is not impossible but who can and will pay for such an investment just to be a unpaid bitcoin client (full node).
But remember that this is the MAX block size, it isn't the I MUST FILL 100% of block size. Of course it's way high, even 128MB is ridiculous if it ever get completely full, to some people it's justa matter of seconds or a minute to download but I do worry about the uploading of those blocks.
Personally I believe that this well overestimating the rate internet connection-speeds and hard-disk space will grow. Just look at ADSL or even cable for instance.
I don't think storage will ever be much of an issue. Bandwidth sure as shit is and they seem to be a little casual about that with the ever increasing block size proposal.
Nothing you can do about it yourself. You have to wait for your friendly phone company to come around and do some digging up and install major hardware upgrades.
My bandwidth is unchanged in over a decade and there's nothing on the horizon either. It suits my purposes fine but it's not going to like running a node in such a future.
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