{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","author_name":"npub1tjephawh7fdf6358jufuh5eyxwauzrjqa7qn50pglee4tayc2ntqcjtl6r","author_url":"https://nostr.ae/npub1tjephawh7fdf6358jufuh5eyxwauzrjqa7qn50pglee4tayc2ntqcjtl6r","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://nostr.ae","html":"📅 Original date posted:2015-06-26\n📝 Original message:Hello all,\n\nhere I'm going to try to address a part of the block size debate which has\nbeen troubling me since the beginning: the reason why people seem to want\nit.\n\nPeople say that larger blocks are necessary. In the long term, I agree - in\nthe sense that systems that do not evolve tend to be replaced by other\nsystems. This evolution can come in terms of layers on top of Bitcoin's\nblockchain, in terms of the technology underlying various aspects of the\nblockchain itself, and also in the scale that this technology supports.\n\nI do, however, fundamentally disagree that a fear for a change in economics\nshould be considered to necessitate larger blocks. If it is, and there is\nconsensus that we should adapt to it, then there is effectively no limit\ngoing forward. This is similar to how Congress voting to increase the\ncopyright term retroactively from time to time is really no different from\nhaving an infinite copyright term in the first place. This scares me.\n\nHere is how Gavin summarizes the future without increasing block sizes in\nPR 6341:\n\n\u003e 1. Transaction confirmation times for transactions with a given fee will\nrise; very-low-fee transactions will fail to get confirmed at all.\n\u003e 2. Average transaction fee paid will rise\n\u003e 3. People or applications unwilling or unable to pay the rising fees will\nstop submitting transactions\n\u003e 4. People and businesses will shelve plans to use Bitcoin, stunting\ngrowth and adoption\n\nIs it fair to summarize this as \"Some use cases won't fit any more, people\nwill decide to no longer use the blockchain for these purposes, and the\nfees will adapt.\"?\n\nI think that is already happening, and will happen at any scale. I believe\ndemand for payments in general is nearly infinite, and only a small portion\nof it will eventually fit on a block chain (independent of whether its size\nis limited by consensus rules or economic or technological means).\nFurthermore, systems that compete with Bitcoin in this space already offer\norders of magnitude more capacity than we can reasonably achieve with any\nblockchain technology at this point.\n\nI don't know what subset of use cases Bitcoin will cater to in the long\nterm. They have already changed - you see way less betting transactions\nthese days than a few years ago for example - and they will keep changing,\nindependent of what effective block sizes we end up with. I don't think we\nshould be afraid of this change or try to stop it.\n\nIf you look at graphs of block sizes over time (for example,\nhttp://rusty.ozlabs.org/?p=498), it seems to me that there is very little\n\"organic\" growth, and a lot of sudden changes (which could correspond to\nchanging defaults in miner software, introduction of popular\nsites/services, changes in the economy). I think these can be seen as the\neconomy changing to full up the available space, and I believe these will\nkeep happening at any size effectively available.\n\nNone of this is a reason why the size can't increase. However, in my\nopinion, we should do it because we believe it increases utility and\nunderstand the risks; not because we're afraid of what might happen if we\ndon't hurry up. And from that point of view, it seems silly to make a huge\nincrease at once...\n\n-- \nPieter\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20150626/69d0ee83/attachment.html\u003e"}