Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2015 13:37:44 -0700
From: Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>
To: Matt Whitlock <bip@mattwhitlock.name>
Message-ID: <20150825203744.GB3464@muck>
References: <CAED3CWipF8u5g3LUrqfyHxvEk4Lu+d12ZOJZnoBUw6iZZOg-ZQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAFzgq-x9GBbqARyhMgfSPc=wYeBgzXy4VUQ0D76GC+TCAxWDuA@mail.gmail.com>
	<20150825201643.GC11083@muck> <1489961.GhSFCGzPRJ@crushinator>
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In-Reply-To: <1489961.GhSFCGzPRJ@crushinator>
Cc: bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org, greg@xiph.org
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Dynamically Controlled Bitcoin Block Size Max Cap
 [BIP 1xx - Draft]
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On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 04:26:23PM -0400, Matt Whitlock wrote:
> On Tuesday, 25 August 2015, at 1:16 pm, Peter Todd via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> > What would you think of an approach like John Dillon's proposal to
> > explicitly give the economic majority of coin holders a vote for the max
> > blocksize? Miners could still vote BIP100 style for what max they were
> > willing to use, limited in turn by the vote of the economic majority.
>=20
> What fraction of coin holders do you suppose will vote? And, of those, wh=
at fraction have the technical knowledge to make an informed vote? It would=
 be like polling Toyota truck owners to see whether the 2017 Tacoma should =
increase its engine's cylinder displacement by 10%. Ordinary users just are=
n't going to be able to vote meaningfully, and most won't respond to the po=
ll at all.

Note that you can make the % of voters required adapt dyanmically to voter
interest. Also, your example is rather misleading, as car buyers *do*
make those kinds of decisions though various market mechanisms. Equally,
you can make the same criticism of democracy in general.

An interesting idea would be to design a voting mechanism such that only
users with access to validating nodes be able to vote - a fundemental
requirement for users to fully participate in Bitcoin's goverance.

--=20
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
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