Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Proposed alternatives to the 20MB step function

From: Matt Whitlock <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 08:48:16 -0400

On Friday, 8 May 2015, at 3:32 pm, Joel Joonatan Kaartinen wrote:
> It seems you missed my suggestion about basing the maximum block size on
> the bitcoin days destroyed in transactions that are included in the block.
> I think it has potential for both scaling as well as keeping up a constant
> fee pressure. If tuned properly, it should both stop spamming and increase
> block size maximum when there are a lot of real transactions waiting for
> inclusion.

I saw it. I apologize for not including it in my list. I should have, for sake of discussion, even though I have a problem with it.

My problem with it is that "bitcoin days destroyed" is not a measure of demand for space in the block chain. In the distant future, when Bitcoin is the predominant global currency, bitcoins will have such high velocity that the number of bitcoin days destroyed in each block will be much lower than at present. Does this mean that the block size limit should be lower in the future than it is now? Clearly this would be incorrect.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your proposal. Could you describe it more explicitly?