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From: Michael Naber <mickeybob@gmail.com>
To: Mark Friedenbach <mark@friedenbach.org>
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Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Fees and the block-finding process
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All things considered, if people want to participate in a global consensus
network, and the technology exist to do it at a lower cost, then is it
sensible or even possible to somehow arbitrarily set the price of
participating in a global consensus network to be expensive? Can someone
please walk me through how that's expected to play out because I'm really
having a hard time understanding how it could work.



On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Mark Friedenbach via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> More people using Bitcoin does not necessarily mean more transactions
> being processed by the block chain. Satoshi was forward-thinking enough to
> include a powerful script-signature system, something which has never
> really existed before. Though suffering from some limitations to be sure,
> this smart contract execution framework is expressive enough to enable a
> wide variety of new features without changing bitcoin itself.
>
> One of these invented features is micropayment channels -- the ability for
> two parties to rapidly exchange funds while only settling the final balance
> to the block chain, and to do so in an entirely trustless way. Right now
> people don't use scripts to do interesting things like this, but there is
> absolutely no reason why they can't. Lightning network is a vision of a
> future where everyone uses a higher-layer protocol for their transactions
> which only periodically settle on the block chain. It is entirely possible
> that you may be able to do all your day-to-day transactions in bitcoin yet
> only settle accounts every other week, totaling 13kB per year. A 1MB block
> could support that level of usage by 4 million people, which is many orders
> of magnitude more than the number of people presently using bitcoin on a
> day to day basis.
>
> And that, by the way, is without considering as-yet uninvented
> applications of existing or future script which will provide even further
> improvements to scale. This is very fertile ground being explored by very
> few people. One thing I hope to come out of this block size debate is a lot
> more people (like Joseph Poon) looking at how bitcoin script can be used to
> enable new and innovative resource-efficient and privacy-enhancing payment
> protocols.
>
> The network has room to grow. It just requires wallet developers and other
> infrastructure folk to step up to the plate and do their part in deploying
> this technology.
>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 2:14 AM, Angel Leon <gubatron@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> - policy neutrality.
>> - It can't be censored.
>> - it can't be shut down
>> - and the rules cannot change from underneath you.
>>
>> except it can be shutdown the minute it actually gets used by its
>> inability to scale.
>>
>> what's the point of having all this if nobody can use it?
>> what's the point of going through all that energy and CO2 for a mere
>> 24,000 transactions an hour?
>>
>> It's clear that it's just a matter of time before it collapses.
>>
>> Here's a simple proposal (concept) that doesn't pretend to set a fixed
>> block size limit as you can't ever know the demands the future will bring
>> https://gist.github.com/gubatron/143e431ee01158f27db4
>>
>> We don't need to go as far as countries with hyper inflation trying to
>> use the technology to make it collapse, anybody here who has distributed
>> commercial/free end user software knows that any small company out there
>> installs more copies in a couple weeks than all the bitcoin users we have
>> at the moment, all we need is a single company/project with a decent amount
>> of users who are now enabled to transact directly on the blockchain to
>> screw it all up (perhaps OpenBazaar this winter could make this whole thing
>> come down, hopefully they'll take this debate and the current limitations
>> before their release, and boy are they coding nonstop on it now that they
>> got funded), the last of your fears should be a malicious government trying
>> to shut you down, for that to happen you must make an impact first, for now
>> this is a silly game in the grand scheme of things.
>>
>> And you did sound pretty bad, all of his points were very valid and they
>> share the concern of many people, many investors, entrepreneurs putting
>> shitload of money, time and their lives on a much larger vision than that
>> of a network that does a mere 3,500 tx/hour, but some people seem to be
>> able to live in impossible or useless ideals.
>>
>> It's simply irresponsible to not want to give the network a chance to
>> grow a bit more. Miners centralizing is inevitable given the POW based
>> consensus, hobbists-mining is only there for countries with very cheap
>> energy.
>>
>> If things remain this way, this whole thing will be a massive failure and
>> it will probably take another decade before we can open our mouths about
>> cryptocurrencies, decentralization and what not, and this stubornness will
>> be the one policy that censored everyone, that shutdown everyone, that made
>> the immutable rules not matter.
>>
>> Perhaps it will be Stellar what ends up delivering at this stubborn pace.
>>
>> http://twitter.com/gubatron
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 4:38 AM, Thomas Zander via bitcoin-dev <
>> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>>
>>> >It follows then, that if we make a decision now which destroys that
>>> property, which makes it possible to censor bitcoin, to deny service, or to
>>> pressure miners into changing rules contrary to user interests, then
>>> Bitcoin is no longer interesting.
>>>
>>> You asked to be convinced of the need for bigger blocks. I gave that.
>>> What makes you think bitcoin will break when more people use it?
>>>
>>> Sent on the go, excuse the brevity.
>>> *From: *Mark Friedenbach
>>> *Sent: *Tuesday, 11 August 2015 08:10
>>> *To: *Thomas Zander
>>> *Cc: *Bitcoin Dev
>>> *Subject: *Re: [bitcoin-dev] Fees and the block-finding process
>>>
>>> On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 11:31 PM, Thomas Zander via bitcoin-dev <
>>> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Monday 10. August 2015 23.03.39 Mark Friedenbach wrote:
>>>> > This is where things diverge. It's fine to pick a new limit or growth
>>>> > trajectory. But defend it with data and reasoned analysis.
>>>>
>>>> We currently serve about 0,007% of the world population sending maybe
>>>> one
>>>> transaction a month.
>>>> This can only go up.
>>>>
>>>> There are about 20 currencies in the world that are unstable and
>>>> showing early
>>>> signs of hyperinflation. If even small percentage of these people
>>>> cash-out and
>>>> get Bitcoins for their savings you'd have the amount of people using
>>>> Bitcoin
>>>> as savings go from maybe half a million to 10 million in the space of a
>>>> couple
>>>> of months. Why so fast? Because all the world currencies are linked.
>>>> Practically all currencies follow the USD, and while that one may stay
>>>> robust
>>>> and standing, the linkage has been shown in the past to cause
>>>> chain-effects.
>>>>
>>>> It is impossible to predict how much uptake Bitcoin will take, but we
>>>> have
>>>> seen big rises in price as Cyprus had a bailin and then when Greece
>>>> first
>>>> showed bad signs again.
>>>> Lets do our due diligence and agree that in the current world economy
>>>> there
>>>> are sure signs that people are considering Bitcoin on a big scale.
>>>>
>>>> Bigger amount of people holding Bitcoin savings won't make the
>>>> transaction
>>>> rate go up very much, but if you have feet on the ground you already
>>>> see that
>>>> people go back to barter in countries like Poland, Ireland, Greece etc.
>>>> And Bitcoin will be an alternative to good to ignore.  Then transaction
>>>> rates
>>>> will go up. Dramatically.
>>>>
>>>> If you are asking for numbers, that is a bit tricky. Again; we are at
>>>> 0,007%... Thats like a f-ing rounding error in the world economy. You
>>>> can't
>>>> reason from that. Its like using a float to do calculations that you
>>>> should
>>>> have done in a double and getting weird output.
>>>>
>>>> Bottom line is that a maximum size of 8Mb blocks is not that odd.
>>>> Because a 20
>>>> times increase is very common in a "company" that is about 6 years old.
>>>> For instance Android was about that age when it started to get shipped
>>>> by non-
>>>> Google companies. There the increase was substantially bigger and the
>>>> company
>>>> backing it was definitely able to change direction faster than the
>>>> Bitcoin
>>>> oiltanker can change direction.
>>>>
>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>> Another metric to remember; if you follow hackernews (well, the
>>>> incubator more
>>>> than the linked articles) you'd be exposed to the thinking of these
>>>> startups.
>>>> Their only criteria is growth. and this is rather substantial growth.
>>>> Like
>>>> 150% per month.  Naturally, most of these build on top of html or other
>>>> existing technologies.  But the point is that exponential growth is
>>>> expected
>>>> in any startup.  They typically have a much much more agressive
>>>> timeline,
>>>> though. Every month instead of every year.
>>>> Having exponential growth in the blockchain is really not odd and even
>>>> if we
>>>> have LN or sidechains or the next changetip, this space will be used.
>>>> And we
>>>> will still have scarcity.
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm sorry, I really don't want to sound like a jerk, but not a single
>>> word of that mattered. Yes we all want Bitcoin to scale such that every
>>> person in the world can use it without difficulty. However if that were all
>>> that we cared about then I would be remiss if I did not point out that
>>> there are plenty of better, faster, and cheaper solutions to finding global
>>> consensus over a payment ledger than Bitcoin. Architectures which are
>>> algorithmically superior in their scaling properties. Indeed they are
>>> already implemented and you can use them today:
>>>
>>> https://www.stellar.org/
>>> http://opentransactions.org/
>>>
>>> So why do I work on Bitcoin, and why do I care about the outcome of this
>>> debate? Because Bitcoin offers one thing, and one thing only which
>>> alternative architectures fundamentally lack: policy neutrality. It can't
>>> be censored, it can't be shut down, and the rules cannot change from
>>> underneath you. *That* is what Bitcoin offers that can't be replicated at
>>> higher scale with a SQL database and an audit log.
>>>
>>> It follows then, that if we make a decision now which destroys that
>>> property, which makes it possible to censor bitcoin, to deny service, or to
>>> pressure miners into changing rules contrary to user interests, then
>>> Bitcoin is no longer interesting. We might as well get rid of mining at
>>> that point and make Bitcoin look like Stellar or Open-Transactions because
>>> at least then we'd scale even better and not be pumping millions of tons of
>>> CO2 into the atmosphere from running all those ASICs.
>>>
>>> On the other side, 3Tb harddrives are sold, which take 8Mb blocks without
>>>> problems.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Straw man, storage is not an issue.
>>>
>>>
>>>> You can buy broadband in every relevant country that easily supports the
>>>> bandwidth we need. (remember we won't jump to 8Mb in a day, it will
>>>> likely
>>>> take at least 6 months).
>>>>
>>>
>>> Neither one of those assertions is clear. Keep in mind the goal is to
>>> have Bitcoin survive active censorship. Presumably that means being able to
>>> run a node even in the face of a hostile ISP or government. Furthermore, it
>>> means being location independent and being able to move around. In many
>>> places the higher the bandwidth requirements the fewer the number of ISPs
>>> that are available to service you, and the more visible you are.
>>>
>>> It may also be necessary to be able to run over Tor. And not just
>>> today's Tor which is developed, serviced, and supported by the US
>>> government, but a Tor or I2P that future governments have turned hostile
>>> towards and actively censor or repress. Or existing authoritative
>>> governments, for that matter. How much bandwidth would be available through
>>> those connections?
>>>
>>> It may hopefully never be necessary to operate under such constraints,
>>> except by freedom seeking individuals within existing totalitarian regimes.
>>> However the credible threat of doing so may be what keeps Bitcoin from
>>> being repressed in the first place. Lose the capability to go underground,
>>> and it will be pressured into regulation, eventually.
>>>
>>> To the second point, it has been previously pointed out that large
>>> miners stand to gain from larger blocks, for the same basic underlying
>>> reasons as selfish mining. The incentive is to increase blocks, and miners
>>> are able to do so at will and without cost. I would not be so certain that
>>> we wouldn't see large blocks sooner than that.
>>>
>>>
>>>> We should get the inverted bloom filters stuff (or competing products)
>>>> working
>>>> at least on a one-to-one basis so we can solve the propagation time
>>>> problem.
>>>> There frankly is a huge amount of optimization that can be done in that
>>>> area,
>>>> we don't even use locality (pingtime) to optimize distribution.
>>>> From my experience you can expect a 2-magnitude speedup in that same 6
>>>> month
>>>> period by focusing some research there.
>>>>
>>>
>>> This is basically already deployed thanks to Matt's relay network.
>>> Further improvements are not going to have dramatic effects.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Remember 8Gb/block still doesn't support VISA/Mastercard.
>>>>
>>>
>>> No, it doesn't. And 8GB/block is ludicrously large -- it would
>>> absolutely, without any doubt destroy the very nature of Bitcoin, turning
>>> it into a fundamentally uninteresting reincarnation of the existing
>>> financial system. And still be unable to compete with VISA/Mastercard.
>>>
>>> So why then the pressure to go down a route that WILL lead to failure by
>>> your own metrics?
>>>
>>> I humbly suggest that maybe we should play the strengths of Bitcoin
>>> instead -- it's trustlessness via policy neutrality.
>>>
>>> Either that, or go work on Stellar. Because that's where it's headed
>>> otherwise.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> bitcoin-dev mailing list
>>> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
>>> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>
>

--f46d043bdf745e6275051d0e1527
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<div dir=3D"ltr">All things considered, if people want to participate in a =
global consensus network, and the technology exist to do it at a lower cost=
, then is it sensible or even possible to somehow arbitrarily set the price=
 of participating in a global consensus network to be expensive? Can someon=
e please walk me through how that&#39;s expected to play out because I&#39;=
m really having a hard time understanding how it could work.<div><br></div>=
<div><br></div></div><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br><div class=3D"gmail_quo=
te">On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Mark Friedenbach via bitcoin-dev <span=
 dir=3D"ltr">&lt;<a href=3D"mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org" t=
arget=3D"_blank">bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org</a>&gt;</span> wrote=
:<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-le=
ft:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div><div><div>More pe=
ople using Bitcoin does not necessarily mean more transactions being proces=
sed by the block chain. Satoshi was forward-thinking enough to include a po=
werful script-signature system, something which has never really existed be=
fore. Though suffering from some limitations to be sure, this smart contrac=
t execution framework is expressive enough to enable a wide variety of new =
features without changing bitcoin itself.<br><br></div>One of these invente=
d features is micropayment channels -- the ability for two parties to rapid=
ly exchange funds while only settling the final balance to the block chain,=
 and to do so in an entirely trustless way. Right now people don&#39;t use =
scripts to do interesting things like this, but there is absolutely no reas=
on why they can&#39;t. Lightning network is a vision of a future where ever=
yone uses a higher-layer protocol for their transactions which only periodi=
cally settle on the block chain. It is entirely possible that you may be ab=
le to do all your day-to-day transactions in bitcoin yet only settle accoun=
ts every other week, totaling 13kB per year. A 1MB block could support that=
 level of usage by 4 million people, which is many orders of magnitude more=
 than the number of people presently using bitcoin on a day to day basis.<b=
r><br></div>And that, by the way, is without considering as-yet uninvented =
applications of existing or future script which will provide even further i=
mprovements to scale. This is very fertile ground being explored by very fe=
w people. One thing I hope to come out of this block size debate is a lot m=
ore people (like Joseph Poon) looking at how bitcoin script can be used to =
enable new and innovative resource-efficient and privacy-enhancing payment =
protocols.<br><br></div>The network has room to grow. It just requires wall=
et developers and other infrastructure folk to step up to the plate and do =
their part in deploying this technology.<br></div><div class=3D"HOEnZb"><di=
v class=3D"h5"><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br><div class=3D"gmail_quote">On=
 Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 2:14 AM, Angel Leon <span dir=3D"ltr">&lt;<a href=3D"=
mailto:gubatron@gmail.com" target=3D"_blank">gubatron@gmail.com</a>&gt;</sp=
an> wrote:<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;=
border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr">-<span style=
=3D"font-size:13px"> policy neutrality.=C2=A0</span><div><span style=3D"fon=
t-size:13px">- It can&#39;t be censored.</span></div><div><span style=3D"fo=
nt-size:13px">- it can&#39;t be shut down</span></div><div><span style=3D"f=
ont-size:13px">- and the rules cannot change from underneath you.<br><br></=
span><div>except it can be shutdown the minute it actually gets used by its=
 inability to scale.<br><br>what&#39;s the point of having all this if nobo=
dy can use it?<br>what&#39;s the point of going through all that energy and=
 CO2 for a mere 24,000 transactions an hour?<br><br>It&#39;s clear that it&=
#39;s just a matter of time before it collapses.<br><br>Here&#39;s a simple=
 proposal (concept) that doesn&#39;t pretend to set a fixed block size limi=
t as you can&#39;t ever know the demands the future will bring <a href=3D"h=
ttps://gist.github.com/gubatron/143e431ee01158f27db4" target=3D"_blank">htt=
ps://gist.github.com/gubatron/143e431ee01158f27db4</a> <br><br>We don&#39;t=
 need to go as far as countries with hyper inflation trying to use the tech=
nology to make it collapse, anybody here who has distributed commercial/fre=
e end user software knows that any small company out there installs more co=
pies in a couple weeks than all the bitcoin users we have at the moment, al=
l we need is a single company/project with a decent amount of users who are=
 now enabled to transact directly on the blockchain to screw it all up (per=
haps OpenBazaar this winter could make this whole thing come down, hopefull=
y they&#39;ll take this debate and the current limitations before their rel=
ease, and boy are they coding nonstop on it now that they got funded), the =
last of your fears should be a malicious government trying to shut you down=
, for that to happen you must make an impact first, for now this is a silly=
 game in the grand scheme of things.</div><div><br>And you did sound pretty=
 bad, all of his points were very valid and they share the concern of many =
people, many investors, entrepreneurs putting shitload of money, time and t=
heir lives on a much larger vision than that of a network that does a mere =
3,500 tx/hour, but some people seem to be able to live in impossible or use=
less ideals.=C2=A0</div><div><br></div><div>It&#39;s simply irresponsible t=
o not want to give the network a chance to grow a bit more. Miners centrali=
zing is inevitable given the POW based consensus, hobbists-mining is only t=
here for countries with very cheap energy.<br><br>If things remain this way=
, this whole thing will be a massive failure and it will probably take anot=
her decade before we can open our mouths about cryptocurrencies, decentrali=
zation and what not, and this stubornness will be the one policy that censo=
red everyone, that shutdown everyone, that made the immutable rules not mat=
ter.<br><br>Perhaps it will be Stellar what ends up delivering at this stub=
born pace.</div></div></div><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br clear=3D"all"><d=
iv><div><a href=3D"http://twitter.com/gubatron" target=3D"_blank">http://tw=
itter.com/gubatron</a><br></div></div>
<br><div class=3D"gmail_quote"><div><div>On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 4:38 AM, T=
homas Zander via bitcoin-dev <span dir=3D"ltr">&lt;<a href=3D"mailto:bitcoi=
n-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org" target=3D"_blank">bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxf=
oundation.org</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br></div></div><blockquote class=3D"gma=
il_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-lef=
t:1ex"><div><div><div style=3D"background-color:rgb(255,255,255);line-heigh=
t:initial">                                                                =
                      <div style=3D"width:100%;font-size:initial;font-famil=
y:Calibri,&#39;Slate Pro&#39;,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125);text-align:in=
itial;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style=3D"color:rgb(0,0,0);fo=
nt-family:sans-serif">&gt;It follows then, that if we make a decision now w=
hich destroys that property, which makes it possible to censor bitcoin, to =
deny service, or to pressure miners into changing rules contrary to user in=
terests, then Bitcoin is no longer interesting. </span></div><div style=3D"=
width:100%;font-size:initial;font-family:Calibri,&#39;Slate Pro&#39;,sans-s=
erif;color:rgb(31,73,125);text-align:initial;background-color:rgb(255,255,2=
55)"><span style=3D"color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif"><br></span></d=
iv><div style=3D"width:100%;font-size:initial;font-family:Calibri,&#39;Slat=
e Pro&#39;,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125);text-align:initial;background-co=
lor:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style=3D"color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-seri=
f">You asked to be convinced of the need for bigger blocks. I gave that.</s=
pan></div><div style=3D"width:100%;font-size:initial;font-family:Calibri,&#=
39;Slate Pro&#39;,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125);text-align:initial;backgr=
ound-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style=3D"color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sa=
ns-serif">What makes you think bitcoin will break when more people use it?<=
/span></div>                                                               =
                                                                      <div =
style=3D"width:100%;font-size:initial;font-family:Calibri,&#39;Slate Pro&#3=
9;,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125);text-align:initial;background-color:rgb(=
255,255,255)"><br style=3D"display:initial"></div>                         =
                                                                           =
                                                                           =
                    <div style=3D"font-size:initial;font-family:Calibri,&#3=
9;Slate Pro&#39;,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125);text-align:initial;backgro=
und-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Sent=C2=A0on=C2=A0the=C2=A0go,=C2=A0excuse=C2=
=A0the=C2=A0brevity.=C2=A0</div>                                           =
                                                                           =
                                                            <table style=3D=
"background-color:white;border-spacing:0px" width=3D"100%"> <tbody><tr><td =
colspan=3D"2" style=3D"font-size:initial;text-align:initial;background-colo=
r:rgb(255,255,255)">                           <div style=3D"border-style:s=
olid none none;border-top-color:rgb(181,196,223);border-top-width:1pt;paddi=
ng:3pt 0in 0in;font-family:Tahoma,&#39;BB Alpha Sans&#39;,&#39;Slate Pro&#3=
9;;font-size:10pt">  <div><b>From: </b>Mark Friedenbach</div><div><b>Sent: =
</b>Tuesday, 11 August 2015 08:10</div><div><b>To: </b>Thomas Zander</div><=
div><b>Cc: </b>Bitcoin Dev</div><div><b>Subject: </b>Re: [bitcoin-dev] Fees=
 and the block-finding process</div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div st=
yle=3D"border-style:solid none none;border-top-color:rgb(186,188,209);borde=
r-top-width:1pt;font-size:initial;text-align:initial;background-color:rgb(2=
55,255,255)"></div><br><div><div dir=3D"ltr">On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 11:31 =
PM, Thomas Zander via bitcoin-dev <span dir=3D"ltr">&lt;<a href=3D"mailto:b=
itcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org" target=3D"_blank">bitcoin-dev@lists.l=
inuxfoundation.org</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><div=
 class=3D"gmail_quote"><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 =
0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span>On Monday 10. A=
ugust <a href=3D"tel:2015%2023.03.39" value=3D"+12015230339" target=3D"_bla=
nk">2015 23.03.39</a> Mark Friedenbach wrote:<br>
&gt; This is where things diverge. It&#39;s fine to pick a new limit or gro=
wth<br>
&gt; trajectory. But defend it with data and reasoned analysis.<br>
<br>
</span>We currently serve about 0,007% of the world population sending mayb=
e one<br>
transaction a month.<br>
This can only go up.<br>
<br>
There are about 20 currencies in the world that are unstable and showing ea=
rly<br>
signs of hyperinflation. If even small percentage of these people cash-out =
and<br>
get Bitcoins for their savings you&#39;d have the amount of people using Bi=
tcoin<br>
as savings go from maybe half a million to 10 million in the space of a cou=
ple<br>
of months. Why so fast? Because all the world currencies are linked.<br>
Practically all currencies follow the USD, and while that one may stay robu=
st<br>
and standing, the linkage has been shown in the past to cause chain-effects=
.<br>
<br>
It is impossible to predict how much uptake Bitcoin will take, but we have<=
br>
seen big rises in price as Cyprus had a bailin and then when Greece first<b=
r>
showed bad signs again.<br>
Lets do our due diligence and agree that in the current world economy there=
<br>
are sure signs that people are considering Bitcoin on a big scale.<br>
<br>
Bigger amount of people holding Bitcoin savings won&#39;t make the transact=
ion<br>
rate go up very much, but if you have feet on the ground you already see th=
at<br>
people go back to barter in countries like Poland, Ireland, Greece etc.<br>
And Bitcoin will be an alternative to good to ignore.=C2=A0 Then transactio=
n rates<br>
will go up. Dramatically.<br>
<br>
If you are asking for numbers, that is a bit tricky. Again; we are at<br>
0,007%... Thats like a f-ing rounding error in the world economy. You can&#=
39;t<br>
reason from that. Its like using a float to do calculations that you should=
<br>
have done in a double and getting weird output.<br>
<br>
Bottom line is that a maximum size of 8Mb blocks is not that odd. Because a=
 20<br>
times increase is very common in a &quot;company&quot; that is about 6 year=
s old.<br>
For instance Android was about that age when it started to get shipped by n=
on-<br>
Google companies. There the increase was substantially bigger and the compa=
ny<br>
backing it was definitely able to change direction faster than the Bitcoin<=
br>
oiltanker can change direction.<br>
<br>
...<br>
<br>
Another metric to remember; if you follow hackernews (well, the incubator m=
ore<br>
than the linked articles) you&#39;d be exposed to the thinking of these sta=
rtups.<br>
Their only criteria is growth. and this is rather substantial growth. Like<=
br>
150% per month.=C2=A0 Naturally, most of these build on top of html or othe=
r<br>
existing technologies.=C2=A0 But the point is that exponential growth is ex=
pected<br>
in any startup.=C2=A0 They typically have a much much more agressive timeli=
ne,<br>
though. Every month instead of every year.<br>
Having exponential growth in the blockchain is really not odd and even if w=
e<br>
have LN or sidechains or the next changetip, this space will be used. And w=
e<br>
will still have scarcity.</blockquote><div>=C2=A0<br></div><div>I&#39;m sor=
ry, I really don&#39;t want to sound like a jerk, but not a single word of =
that mattered. Yes we all want Bitcoin to scale such that every person in t=
he world can use it without difficulty. However if that were all that we ca=
red about then I would be remiss if I did not point out that there are plen=
ty of better, faster, and cheaper solutions to finding global consensus ove=
r a payment ledger than Bitcoin. Architectures which are algorithmically su=
perior in their scaling properties. Indeed they are already implemented and=
 you can use them today:<br><br><a href=3D"https://www.stellar.org/" target=
=3D"_blank">https://www.stellar.org/</a><br><a href=3D"http://opentransacti=
ons.org/" target=3D"_blank">http://opentransactions.org/</a><br><br></div><=
div>So why do I work on Bitcoin, and why do I care about the outcome of thi=
s debate? Because Bitcoin offers one thing, and one thing only which altern=
ative architectures fundamentally lack: policy neutrality. It can&#39;t be =
censored, it can&#39;t be shut down, and the rules cannot change from under=
neath you. *That* is what Bitcoin offers that can&#39;t be replicated at hi=
gher scale with a SQL database and an audit log.<br><br></div><div>It follo=
ws then, that if we make a decision now which destroys that property, which=
 makes it possible to censor bitcoin, to deny service, or to pressure miner=
s into changing rules contrary to user interests, then Bitcoin is no longer=
 interesting. We might as well get rid of mining at that point and make Bit=
coin look like Stellar or Open-Transactions because at least then we&#39;d =
scale even better and not be pumping millions of tons of CO2 into the atmos=
phere from running all those ASICs.<br></div><div><br></div><blockquote cla=
ss=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;pa=
dding-left:1ex">

On the other side, 3Tb harddrives are sold, which take 8Mb blocks without<b=
r>
problems.<br>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>Straw man, storage is not an issue.<br></d=
iv><div>=C2=A0</div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0=
 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">You can buy broadband in=
 every relevant country that easily supports the<br>
bandwidth we need. (remember we won&#39;t jump to 8Mb in a day, it will lik=
ely<br>
take at least 6 months).<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Neither one of=
 those assertions is clear. Keep in mind the goal is to have Bitcoin surviv=
e active censorship. Presumably that means being able to run a node even in=
 the face of a hostile ISP or government. Furthermore, it means being locat=
ion independent and being able to move around. In many places the higher th=
e bandwidth requirements the fewer the number of ISPs that are available to=
 service you, and the more visible you are.<br><br></div><div>It may also b=
e necessary to be able to run over Tor. And not just today&#39;s Tor which =
is developed, serviced, and supported by the US government, but a Tor or I2=
P that future governments have turned hostile towards and actively censor o=
r repress. Or existing authoritative governments, for that matter. How much=
 bandwidth would be available through those connections?<br><br></div><div>=
It may hopefully never be necessary to operate under such constraints, exce=
pt by freedom seeking individuals within existing totalitarian regimes. How=
ever the credible threat of doing so may be what keeps Bitcoin from being r=
epressed in the first place. Lose the capability to go underground, and it =
will be pressured into regulation, eventually.<br><br></div><div>To the sec=
ond point, it has been previously pointed out that large miners stand to ga=
in from larger blocks, for the same basic underlying reasons as selfish min=
ing. The incentive is to increase blocks, and miners are able to do so at w=
ill and without cost. I would not be so certain that we wouldn&#39;t see la=
rge blocks sooner than that.<br></div><div>=C2=A0</div><blockquote class=3D=
"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding=
-left:1ex">
We should get the inverted bloom filters stuff (or competing products) work=
ing<br>
at least on a one-to-one basis so we can solve the propagation time problem=
.<br>There frankly is a huge amount of optimization that can be done in tha=
t area,<br>
we don&#39;t even use locality (pingtime) to optimize distribution.<br>
From my experience you can expect a 2-magnitude speedup in that same 6 mont=
h<br>
period by focusing some research there.<br>


</blockquote><div><br></div><div>This is basically already deployed thanks =
to Matt&#39;s relay network. Further improvements are not going to have dra=
matic effects.<br>=C2=A0<br></div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=
=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Remember=
 8Gb/block still doesn&#39;t support VISA/Mastercard.<br></blockquote><div>=
<br></div><div>No, it doesn&#39;t. And 8GB/block is ludicrously large -- it=
 would absolutely, without any doubt destroy the very nature of Bitcoin, tu=
rning it into a fundamentally uninteresting reincarnation of the existing f=
inancial system. And still be unable to compete with VISA/Mastercard.<br><b=
r></div><div>So why then the pressure to go down a route that WILL lead to =
failure by your own metrics?<br><br></div><div>I humbly suggest that maybe =
we should play the strengths of Bitcoin instead -- it&#39;s trustlessness v=
ia policy neutrality.<br><br></div><div>Either that, or go work on Stellar.=
 Because that&#39;s where it&#39;s headed otherwise.<br></div></div></div><=
/div>
<br></div></div>
<br></div></div><span>_______________________________________________<br>
bitcoin-dev mailing list<br>
<a href=3D"mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org" target=3D"_blank">=
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org</a><br>
<a href=3D"https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev" =
rel=3D"noreferrer" target=3D"_blank">https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mail=
man/listinfo/bitcoin-dev</a><br>
<br></span></blockquote></div><br></div>
</blockquote></div><br></div>
</div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
bitcoin-dev mailing list<br>
<a href=3D"mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org">bitcoin-dev@lists.=
linuxfoundation.org</a><br>
<a href=3D"https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev" =
rel=3D"noreferrer" target=3D"_blank">https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mail=
man/listinfo/bitcoin-dev</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br></div>

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