Topic: Why is big blocks bad? (Read 2063 times)

I run a full node at home. I don't think running a full node is for everyone, but it's not that bad. CPU usage is pretty low, disk usage is acceptable, and network traffic is not too bad. The initial syncing process takes forever, though.

We should be able to increase the base block size modestly at this time, in addition to SegWit (for various other benefits it offers), without risking much centralization of nodes. I know my (3-year-old) computer can easily handle it.

As has been pointed out in this thread, the more significant deciding power is with the miners. At this point, I'm way more concerned about the centralization of mining than I am about centralization of nodes. I would rather not have a vast majority of the hashpower located in a single country. What can be done about that?

I believe that having a bigger block is beneficial in terms of the users. There will be more transaction be confirmed within a single block. If there are more transaction that will be confirmed at a time then lower fees will be imposed. Also, since more transactions are processes per block, there is less waiting time for the confirmation of the transaction be done. This is what I believe at first but due to the arguments laid by others, I think my thoughts are useless to the facts that what will really happen if the increase in blocksize will be implemented.

NO, NOT TRUE. The mining speed will not be affected by the block size, at least not significantly. The merkle root is indeed, hashed by the miner to place it into the block header. However, it is not hashed repeatedly, it is only hashed once before it is passed to the miners in a pool. The tradeoff for this is worth it.

However, the propagation time for bigger blocks can potentially be longer and this can cause blocks to get orphaned. It would take more time for nodes to process it too. Miners are generally not very affected*.

*Well SPV mining.

Just imagine when the miners a mining a small rock then they suddently have to mine a really big rock, they will we stuck there for a long time that cause the chain stop.

Big Blocks are not really bad in and of themselves. What's bad are those people who think that "Big Blocks = Scaling". It is not. Doubling the block size and getting 2x the number of transactions while suffering a quadratic increase in computational costs can hardly be called scaling. It is just an incremental improvement that you could make to the protocol as computing and network resources become cheaper and more abundant.

Some people in core think it's bad because they fear

1) Hard Fork (HF) needed (was discussed by Satoshi)

2) Smaller users cannot afford running thy system (nodes)


So they want rather SegWit, that allows like in a crowded court to get more space for the mob -> the witness / jury sit on the street and can get pruned on wish (was never recommended by Satoshi Nakamoto!!).


Now they will allow with segwit big companies to run BS licened 2nd layer scaling business (small users may run out of business anyway)

And finally with UASF they (at least Luke) are happy to risk a HF .


 

Make sense ??

NOOOOOOOOOO !!!

It is logic like this which is very very dangerous.    You want a quick solution to a immediate problem you are having .... and you think you know the solution, but freely admit you don't understand it.


Increasing blocks ... will allow bitcoin to be controlled by those who are powerful enough  (and we all know there are very powerful forces out there that will take control if an opportunity presents).   Slippery slope, that leads to nowhere good.

Solutions to capacity will come in time.

No, making blocks bigger isn't bad. They have almost no cons and only pros:
- Availability of bitcoin to more people
- Cheaper transactions than we have these days
- And big return of 10-minute transactions!
Bitcoin will die if it won't be forked. Especially Core devs will regret this sooner or later.

Would you check out the price of your PC and the cost of running it 24/7? Not everyone is going to run it 24/7 and most are going to run it on a raspberry pi or VPS. Perhaps, you didn't really notice your CPU usage while synchronizing? It will only get more agonizing if the blocks gets too big.

No, neither do I think we would hit 100mb. But would you read the question? I'm not saying that the block would be 100mb, I am saying that the miners can potentially (though unlikely) mine a huge block if there wasn't any block size limit and cause nodes to take time to verify it.

Note: I don't oppose increasing the block limit either. Calm down and read the post that I am replying to .

This will happen when bitcoin's brand name has eroded away.  Not quite there yet, but in a not-too-distant future, when bitcoin will have become a crypto amongst other crypto, yes.  For the moment, the bitcoin brand name is still what keeps unity in bitcoin, because the one changing it, could lose the brand name, and hence, lose about everything (bitcoin is essentially a brand name, not much more).

When there will be 5 or 10 cryptos with comparable (even if individually still smaller) market cap and trade volume as bitcoin, bitcoin will be able to split and solve its problems.

Why not create Jihancoin with 2 mega blocks?

I do not think the big bad blocks, large blocks will make the speed of the transaction more quickly, things easier for the user, however, there is a risk, large blocks can not guarantee The security, it is easily hacked by the hack, which is what no one wants. So if you want larger blocks, Bitcoin needs decentralization.

So it requires more storage space for users over time (essentially 2x the growth from this point in blockchain data usage than what it would be with 1mb blocks) along with making it a challenge to maintain nodes as there are slightly higher barriers to entry. That's what I've heard so far and it sounds fairly accurate.
I don't really have a very strong opinion right now but it does seem like larger block sizes are the better plan right now.

The sneaky thing in this argument is that it is tacitly assumed that a full node has something to do with 'decentralization'.  It hasn't.  One should distinguish "decentralization" (which is a notion of *decision power*) and "distribution" (which has to do with spread-out architecture of a system).  Facebook is entirely centralized (the power is with 1 entity, Mark Zuckerberg) but is very much distributed throughout the world.  

To measure the power of "decentralization" of a full node, one has to ask oneself what *decision power* it has in bitcoin.  What are the decisions in bitcoin ?  They are the block chain.  All decisions in bitcoin are in the block chain: the block chain contains all the data on which bitcoin's existence is based.  There's nothing in bitcoin of any significance that is not notified in the block chain.

So, how much can a full node take decisions ?

The block chain of bitcoin is supposed to be built according to a certain set of rules: the protocol.  Full node software checks the entire block chain to see whether this protocol has been followed or not.  The protocol rules are built into the software of the full node.  So at first sight, it could seem that full nodes can signal that the block chain one is giving to them, is not built according to the protocol.  That's true: it can SIGNAL it, to its owner.

Essentially, we can assume that a certain part of the block chain, since its beginning, is built according to the protocol in the software of the full node.  And at a certain point, say, block 515000, the block in the block chain is NOT according to the rules.  What does the full node do ? It refuses that block 515000, and it waits until it finds a "correct" successor to block 514 999, the last "good" block.

Now, who is MAKING the block chain ?  The only entities MAKING the block chain are the miners.  In order to make a block chain, one needs to prove HUGE amounts of work, so only miners can possibly propose blocks which contain this huge amount of work.  Nobody else can.  Miners validate previous blocks, by building their blocks on top of the block they validate.   That is the core of the consensus decision mechanism in bitcoin: a block is validated by other miners, because they build their blocks on top of it.
Given that only miners can validate blocks, and that, if they do, they build blocks on top of the valid blocks, it means that as long as they have consensus amongst them, there is only one block chain out there, and nobody can make another one.

So if your "validating node" somehow doesn't like block 515 000, the only unique block 515 000 out there on which miners built 515 001 and 515 002 etc..., then your validating node stops forever at 514 999, and that's it.  Now you know.  And you knowing is the only thing that happens.  Your node stopping at 514 999, or you switching off the computer on which it runs, has, from the outside, exactly the same effect.  You have no decision power that goes beyond "switching off your computer".

This is why full nodes have no decision power on the decisions in bitcoin, that is to say, on the construction of the block chain ; and nodes that have no decision power do not contribute to decentralization.

Bitcoin was made that way: the decision power is the consensus decision, which is made with proof of work (miners), not with nodes (because nodes can be Sybil attacked).  The decision is made by building on top of a block which the provider of proof of work deems valid ; to be, himself, validated by the next block built on top of him etc....

Full nodes can essentially do two things:

1) copy the unique block chain that is out there and serve as a proxy server for it
2) disagree and stop, waiting forever for something that will not come

This is why, even in 2010, Satoshi already said that "the only people needing to run full nodes are those wanting to make new coins" (mining).  The decentralization of bitcoin resides in those that make the block chain.  There are about 20 of them.  That's the real "decentralization" of bitcoin, not whether some guy in central Africa has a full node running in his basement.

Debate on whether 1MB is superior but really at this point we already have the codes ready for a fork in a few months.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1928093.0;topicseen

Probably 750 gb not mb.
I remember I was in high school when we had the first 1gb drives and that was a long time ago.

Also the internet is not really a factor when running a node. Nor the cpu.
It's the f hard drive that really drives me nuts when it syncs after being offline for a while.

That can hardly have been said better; I consider myself from at least upper middle class in my region where min wage is below usd200. The largest capacity hdd I have ever owned is 750mb and I never experienced true high speed internet till recently. Full nodes are already concentrated with the wealthy. Let it not further be out of reach.

I'm an ordinary bitcoin user and it's hard for me to understand these technical nuances. But if the increase in the block will lead to an improvement in the quality of the transfer of coins, then I agree to increase the block.

Fork, but in reality no real excuse to avoid 2mb other than the impact it might have on harddrive space to store a node and transaction download upload speeds that may effect distribution. Needed though in order to transact faster and with more transactions. Does get repetitive though but mmm few more months to go till this circle of questions end.