Topic: What Bitcoin is actually designed for vs Gavin & Theymos vision for scalability (Read 1926 times)

I wish those crap machines that take 5 seconds or longer to verify and relay a block would just go away. They are just slowing down block propagation. I hope your machine is not one of these.

How many seconds does your Atom CPU pin at 100% everytime a new block is found and passes through your node?

During the "attack" a.k.a. "test" my little Atom based Nuc had no trouble keeping up with continuous 1 MB blocks and would have been able to keep up with 8 MB blocks as well, based on my usage statistics. There would have been no problem with network bandwidth, either, so long as I was just verifying blocks and not attempting to mine.  This machine was hardly mainstream computing.  If there had been a performance problem I had two other computers that I could have switched on to do this work, but I didn't see the point in burning extra electricity when a 15 watt machine sufficed.

You are not getting the point - it is not your machine but your internet connection that matters.

If you are mining behind the GCF you can add as many machines as you like but that won't increase your internet bandwidth.

During the "attack" a.k.a. "test" my little Atom based Nuc had no trouble keeping up with continuous 1 MB blocks and would have been able to keep up with 8 MB blocks as well, based on my usage statistics. There would have been no problem with network bandwidth, either, so long as I was just verifying blocks and not attempting to mine.  This machine was hardly mainstream computing.  If there had been a performance problem I had two other computers that I could have switched on to do this work, but I didn't see the point in burning extra electricity when a 15 watt machine sufficed.

During the "attack" a.k.a. "test" my little Atom based Nuc had no trouble keeping up with continuous 1 MB blocks and would have been able to keep up with 8 MB blocks as well, based on my usage statistics. There would have been no problem with network bandwidth, either, so long as I was just verifying blocks and not attempting to mine.  This machine was hardly mainstream computing.  If there had been a performance problem I had two other computers that I could have switched on to do this work, but I didn't see the point in burning extra electricity when a 15 watt machine sufficed.

If satoshi set the limit to 8MB, then during the spamming attack in October many nodes would have already failed. Current mainstream computer hardware and home network simply can not handle 8MB blocks

who's we?

I agree with we can increase to 2MB first to see the effect. Then we can decide what to do next.

Just because you FAIL to see the point of going to 2MB first does not imply the rest of us do not.

In fact the opposite conclusion, that there IS a point to first doing a small increase in an abundance of caution, is indicated by the fact Dr. Back's BIP248 (sorry gmax but we're all calling it that) proposal enjoys a plurality if not an outright majority of support.

It appears blockstream finally sees the light:

"Another idea that has been gathering support is Blockstream CEO and Hashcash inventor Dr. Adam Back's “2-4-8” quick fix, which would incrementally increase to the limit to 8 megabytes in three steps over four years time."

Going to 2mb first is kind of pointless.  Might as well fork straight to 8 since it's going there in a couple years anyway.

The problem is that with 3 tx per second ~ 260,000 tx a day not even the wealthiest 0.004% of the world's population would be able to use Bitcoin just once a day.

If you want your tx to confirm, simply pay a competitive fee.  Or lowball and use RBF if you fail.  That's precisely how it's supposed to work.

The MPEX and #B-A types (among many others) don't agree there is a problem with Bitcoin, and I concur.

~Anyone can (in ~complete security) use Bitcoin to send ~any amount of money ~anywhere in the world, ~instantly and for ~free.

To me, that seems like a fucking miracle on the order of life, consciousness, wheels, fire, and Teflon.  Where's the issue?

In exactly what way does Bitcoin not work just fine?

The problem is that Bitcoin does not work just fine. Both sides of the blocksize debate will agree to at least that.

Edit: All of the innovations above depend on being able to confirm transactions on the main chain.

...

Going along with your anthropomorphism, I don't see Bitcoin "ignoring" technological change.

Quite the opposite, in fact.  I see Bitcoin as the cutting edge of technology, at the forefront of software's attempt to eat the world.

It's got the relay network for now, and IBLT on the horizon.

It's got RBF, so fee markets can mature in the (inevitable) context of tx backpressure.

It's got CLTV, so sidechains and payment channels may enable Visa-scale coffee purchases.

Confidential TX are coming too.

I don't agree with writing predictive/speculative Bitcoin obituaries, regardless of how excited I am about a certain 2nd gen coin (cough, XMR) and a particular 3rd gen smart-chain (cough, ETH).

Those consequent efforts benefited from the hindsight provided by their 2nd/3rd mover status, and they will continue to learn from Bitcoin's trailblazing efforts if we don't fuck it up.

They will benefit less than otherwise possible if we meddle with the Bitcoin experiment by prematurely altering control variables like 1MB max_blocksize, 10 minute blocktime_target, SHA2 PoW, and the 21e6 coin max_coins limit.


Let's also remember technological change doesn't happen in a vacuum and is subject to the Lindy effect, so Bitcoin's critical socioeconomic mass may be as important to the future as the QWERTY keyboard's was (Dvorak and Colemac notwithstanding).

So long as Bitcoin works just fine, there will be no popular appetite for changing its basic parameters simply for the sake of appeasing a noisy minority.

You are correct. Diner's Club was initially conceived as a way for very wealthy individuals to pay for high margin goods and services from high end merchants. The merchant is charged a high fee upwards of 5% in order to cover the cost of maintaining the ledger with the technology of the time. The merchant gladly pays the fee because the card company facilitated a sale with a very high profit margin. The same model was also used by American Express when they started in 1958.

Now Diner's Club had 0.2% of the credit card market, and 0% of the debit card market, while American Express had 8.2% of the credit card market, and 0% of the debit card market in 2013. http://www.nilsonreport.com/publication_special_feature_article.php. The winner in 2013 was VISA 48.5% of the credit card market, and 70.5% of the debit card market. What happened is that the Bank networks (VISA, MasterCard) starting in the late 1960's and 1970 with credit cards and in the 1990's and 2000's with debit cards saw the benefit of the plunging cost of keeping the ledger including even tracking the "schmucks buying cups of coffee" due first to the mainframe computer,  then the PC, Internet, mobile devices etc and adapted while Diner's Club and to a large extent American Express stuck with their business models that were based on the costs in the 1950s of keeping the ledger using punched cards and tabulating machines. This is the key lesson for crypto currency.  

Bitcoin is making the very same mistake in crypto currency that Diner's Club has made over the past 60 years with credit cards namely: Ignoring technological change. It is destined to a similar fate if it survives. Litecoin is also doing a similar thing following in the paths of American Express. There is another alt-coin that has a good chance of becoming the VISA of crypto currency because it has both adaptive blocksize limits and a tail emission. This will allow it to: Adapt to technological change.

My prediction is  crypto currency will be used for micro payments furthermore many copies of the blockchain will be stored on computers and devices (including mobile) under the control of individuals. These computers and devices will also have Terrabytes and Petabytes or more of storage (no need for data centres). The real question is which blockchain will be stored on these computers and devices. Unfortunately here my prediction is that it will not be Bitcoin unless some real drastic change does occur.

“Normal people ... believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.” -Scott Adams