For clarification purposes, I'm not a computer scientist. I'm quite well informed on Bitcoin and economics and I am a bitcoin holder. And I run a proper node (well non mining..). Good Bitcoiner here :) I still don't know which side of the block size is right. I assume good faith from both sides and to me the ad-hominem attacks and accusation of nefarious intents are silly (Except in the case of Mike Hearn who ironically championed these dirty tactics)
I think it's a good thing he is gone, because too divisive, too statist, didn't see anything wrong with centralisation, blacklisting etc.. Jeff and Gavin on the other hand I have no doubt have a lot of skin in the game and hold very dear the ideals of Bitcoin: freedom. And both of them pay attention not only to the technical side but also to the economics of Bitcoin.
Now I have to say that if forced to choose, my logic would I guess be to stick with core developpers. Bitcoin is far from its final form and they are the one getting us there. They have delivered in the last few years, and are also building a lot of the innovations most of us are looking forward to. So the the technical side of it seems to be in their favor.
BUT I have discussed this issue multiple times with friends (including computer engineers) and most of us still don't get what is the REAL problem with reasonably bigger blocks.
I think one big issue is that some people who were arguing for 1mb in the past came up with the node count as a reason to not increase the blocksize. The number of bitcoin nodes hasn't fallen from 10K+ to 5k because it's costly to run a node at 1mb. It is very cheap to run a node for the majority of the users. Marginal cost almost 0. More or less the same for 4mb. The reason people are not running nodes is because they don't care. It's the same thing as GHASH, people will run nodes when they feel we are REALLY too low. They will only care if they see an imminent danger/warning. It's a little bit of hassle to run a node: human being are extremely lazy, just forwarding a port for example or letting your computer run 24/24 is a roadblock. The hassle again is more or less the same at 1mb or 4mb. At way higher size, you could have a node on a barebone for a few hundred bucks. This is nothing, we have thousands of people holding 5-8 figures in $ of bitcoin. They could spend much more than that on running a node if they had to. So I think this argument is counterproductive because easily dismissed. Everytime I hear it, I feel like if it's all that you have, then let's do it. But I suspect there are much stronger arguments to be made, so I would like to hear about them. That's why I'm posting here.
So can you explain in layman's terms why exactly 4mb (2m+seg wit) blocks pose any serious problem ?If not 4mb then 8 ? What's the treshold and why? I mean Adam Back was proposing 8mb (So 4mb with seg witness) only a few months ago. And If 4mb is fine then, why not do it ?
I understand this is part a political decision, people (business, bitcoin holders) are worried about Bitcoin's adoption and future viability. Maybe they should just wait patiently.. But on the other hand if 4mb is not a technical problem then why not accomodate them ? It's not like we are anywhere near mainstream adoption, it's not impacting a fundamental characteristic of Bitcoin either (decentralisation, scarcity, fungibility -which is still lacking a bit-). If you think it's impacting decentralisation, then can you please lay out clear arguments once again?
TLDR: not decided on which side is right, support bitcoin core, trust Gavin and Jeff too, don't think node count is a valid argument, ask what's the real technical problem and the treshold with 4mb or more.
Edit:
Some answers on this page: https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/capacity-increases-faq#size-bump but doesn't provide very strong arguments against 2mb in my opinion. "We don't have the experience" => Now might be a goodtime to experience it. "Upgrades Required" => Doesn't seem like a major reason not do it. "Other changes required"=> Let's see what Bitcoin Classic proposes on these ?
Another interesting post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4151ng/the_mike_hearn_show_season_finale_and_bitcoin/
On the Bitcoin core Slack, somebody told me for him the problem is the Hard fork not the size increase. For him a Hard fork without strong consensus constitutes a breach of the social contract. But there was no strong technical arguments presentented. However I don't think any core dev were presents to answer.
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I think it’s a good thing he is gone, because too divisive, too statist, didn’t see anything wrong with centralisation, blacklisting etc.. Jeff and Gavin on the other hand I have no doubt have a lot of skin in the game and hold very dear the ideals of Bitcoin: freedom. And both of them pay attention not only to the technical side but also to the economics of Bitcoin.
Now I have to say that if forced to choose, my logic would I guess be to stick with core developpers. Bitcoin is far from its final form and they are the one getting us there. They have delivered in the last few years, and are also building a lot of the innovations most of us are looking forward to. So the the technical side of it seems to be in their favor.
BUT I have discussed this issue multiple times with friends (including computer engineers) and most of us still don’t get what is the REAL problem with reasonably bigger blocks.
I think one big issue is that some people who were arguing for 1mb in the past came up with the node count as a reason to not increase the blocksize. The number of bitcoin nodes hasn’t fallen from 10K+ to 5k because it’s costly to run a node at 1mb. It […]
