{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","author_name":"npub13rv3raner7hu6npy7vxxvdswdapae65pnw8jjs4c80wtp2nmg4xq9cy5l4","author_url":"https://nostr.ae/npub13rv3raner7hu6npy7vxxvdswdapae65pnw8jjs4c80wtp2nmg4xq9cy5l4","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://nostr.ae","html":"📅 Original date posted:2015-08-06\n📝 Original message:How many nodes are necessary to ensure sufficient network reliability? Ten,\na hundred, a thousand? At what point do we hit the point of diminishing\nreturns, where adding extra nodes starts to have negligible impact on the\noverall reliability of the system?\n\n\n\n\n\nOn Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 10:26 AM, Pieter Wuille via bitcoin-dev \u003c\nbitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org\u003e wrote:\n\n\u003e On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 5:06 PM, Gavin Andresen \u003cgavinandresen at gmail.com\u003e\n\u003e wrote:\n\u003e\n\u003e\u003e On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 10:53 AM, Pieter Wuille \u003cpieter.wuille at gmail.com\u003e\n\u003e\u003e wrote:\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e\u003e So if we would have 8 MB blocks, and there is a sudden influx of users\n\u003e\u003e\u003e (or settlement systems, who serve much more users) who want to pay high\n\u003e\u003e\u003e fees (let's say 20 transactions per second) making the block chain\n\u003e\u003e\u003e inaccessible for low fee transactions, and unreliable for medium fee\n\u003e\u003e\u003e transactions (for any value of low, medium, and high), would you be ok with\n\u003e\u003e\u003e that?\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e Yes, that's fine. If the network cannot handle the transaction volume\n\u003e\u003e that people want to pay for, then the marginal transactions are priced out.\n\u003e\u003e That is true today (otherwise ChangeTip would be operating on-blockchain),\n\u003e\u003e and will be true forever.\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e The network can \"handle\" any size. I believe that if a majority of miners\n\u003e forms SPV mining agreements, then they are no longer affected by the block\n\u003e size, and benefit from making their blocks slow to validate for others (as\n\u003e long as the fee is negligable compared to the subsidy). I'll try to find\n\u003e the time to implement that in my simulator. Some hardware for full nodes\n\u003e will always be able to validate and index the chain, so nobody needs to run\n\u003e a pesky full node anymore and they can just use a web API to validate\n\u003e payments.\n\u003e\n\u003e Being able the \"handle\" a particular rate is not a boolean question. It's\n\u003e a question of how much security, centralization, and risk for systemic\n\u003e error we're willing to tolerate. These are not things you can just observe,\n\u003e so let's keep talking about the risks, and find a solution that we agree on.\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e\u003e If so, why is 8 MB good but 1 MB not? To me, they're a small constant\n\u003e\u003e\u003e factor that does not fundamentally improve the scale of the system.\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e \"better is better\" -- I applaud efforts to fundamentally improve the\n\u003e\u003e scalability of the system, but I am an old, cranky, pragmatic engineer who\n\u003e\u003e has seen that successful companies tackle problems that arise and are\n\u003e\u003e willing to deploy not-so-perfect solutions if they help whatever short-term\n\u003e\u003e problem they're facing.\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e I don't believe there is a short-term problem. If there is one now, there\n\u003e will be one too at 8 MB blocks (or whatever actual size blocks are\n\u003e produced).\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e\u003e I dislike the outlook of \"being forever locked at the same scale\" while\n\u003e\u003e\u003e technology evolves, so my proposal tries to address that part. It\n\u003e\u003e\u003e intentionally does not try to improve a small factor, because I don't think\n\u003e\u003e\u003e it is valuable.\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e I think consensus is against you on that point.\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e Maybe. But I believe that it is essential to not take unnecessary risks,\n\u003e and find a non-controversial solution.\n\u003e\n\u003e --\n\u003e Pieter\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e _______________________________________________\n\u003e bitcoin-dev mailing list\n\u003e bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org\n\u003e https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev\n\u003e\n\u003e\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20150806/067e62ee/attachment.html\u003e"}