{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","author_name":"npub1vtwuk4rjyj6zrq3tv2z9lvdm6a7g8zujf0gz9q2vljlztdaqw36sjjsjpg","author_url":"https://nostr.ae/npub1vtwuk4rjyj6zrq3tv2z9lvdm6a7g8zujf0gz9q2vljlztdaqw36sjjsjpg","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://nostr.ae","html":"📅 Original date posted:2015-12-07\n📝 Original message:On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 4:02 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:\n\u003e The Scaling Bitcoin Workshop in HK is just wrapping up. Many fascinating\n\u003e proposals were presented. I think this would be a good time to share my\n\u003e view of the near term arc for capacity increases in the Bitcoin system. I\n\u003e believe we’re in a fantastic place right now and that the community\n\u003e is ready to deliver on a clear forward path with a shared vision that\n\u003e addresses the needs of the system while upholding its values.\n\nACK.\n\nOne of the interesting take-aways from the workshops for me has been\nthat there is a large discrepancy between what developers are doing\nand what's more widely known. When I was doing initial research and\nwork for my keynote at the Montreal conference (\nhttp://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin/scalingbitcoin-review.pdf -- an\nattempt at being exhaustive, prior to seeing the workshop proposals ),\nwhat I was most surprised by was the discrepancy between what we think\nis being talked about versus what has been emphasized or socially\nprocessed (lots of proposals appear in text, but review efforts are\nsometimes \"hidden\" in corners of github pull request comments, for\nexample). As another example, the libsecp256k1 testing work reached a\nlevel unseen except perhaps in the aerospace industry, but these sorts\nof details are not apparent if you are reading bitcoin-dev archives.\nIt is very hard to listen to all ideas and find great ideas.\nSometimes, our time can be almost completely exhausted by evaluating\ninefficient proposals, so it's not surprising that rough consensus\nbuilding could take time. I suspect we will see consensus moving in\npositive directions around the proposals you have highlighted.\n\nWhen Satoshi originally released the Bitcoin whitepaper, practically\neveryone-- somehow with the exception of Hal Finney-- didn't look,\nbecause the costs of evaluating cryptographic system proposals is so\nhigh and everyone was jaded and burned out for the past umpteen\ndecades. (I have IRC logs from January 10th 2009 where I immediately\ndismissed Bitcoin after I had seen its announcement on the\np2pfoundation mailing list, perhaps in retrospect I should not let\nfamily tragedy so greatly impact my evaluation of proposals...). It's\nhard to evaluate these proposals. Sometimes it may feel like random\nproposals are review-resistant, or designed to burn our time up. But I\nthink this is more reflective of the simple fact that consensus takes\neffort, and it's hard work, and this is to be expected in this sort of\nsystem design.\n\nYour email contains a good summary of recent scaling progress and of\nefforts presented at the Hong Kong workshop. I like summaries. I have\npreviously recommended making more summaries and posting them to the\nmailing list. In general, it would be good if developers were to write\nsummaries of recent work and efforts and post them to the bitcoin-dev\nmailing list. BIP drafts are excellent. Long-term proposals are\nexcellent. Short-term coordination happens over IRC, and that makes\nsense to me. But I would point out that many of the developments even\nfrom, say, the Montreal workshop were notably absent from the mailing\nlist. Unless someone was paying close attention, they wouldn't have\nnoticed some of those efforts which, in some cases, haven't been\nmentioned since. I suspect most of this is a matter of attention,\nreview and keeping track of loose ends, which can be admittedly\ndifficult.\n\nShort (or even long) summaries in emails are helpful because they\nincrease the ability of the community to coordinate and figure out\nwhat's going on. Often I will write an email that summarizes some\ncontent simply because I estimate that I am going to forget the\ndetails in the near future, and if I am going to forget them then it\nseems likely that others might.... This creates a broad base of\nproposals and content to build from when we're doing development work\nin the future, making for a much richer community as a consequence.\nThe contributions from the scalingbitcoin.org workshops are a welcome\naddition, and the proposal outlined in the above email contains a good\nsummary of recent progress. We need more of this sort of synthesis,\nwe're richer for it. I am excitedly looking forward to the impending\nonslaught of Bitcoin progress.\n\n- Bryan\nhttp://heybryan.org/\n1 512 203 0507"}