Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin Core and hard forks

From: Tom Harding <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2015 09:17:51 -0700

On 7/23/2015 5:17 AM, Jorge Timón via bitcoin-dev wrote:

> If the user expectation is that a price would never arise because
> supply is going to be increased ad infinitum and they will always be
> able to send fast in-chain bitcoin transactions for free, just like
> breath air (an abundant resource) for free, then we should change that
> expectation as soon as possible. 

No.  We should accept that reality may change, and we should promote
understanding of that fact.

We should not artificially manipulate the market "as soon as possible,"
since we ourselves don't know much at all about how the market will
unfold in the future.

> the criteria for the consensus block size should be purely based on
> technological capacity (propagation benchmarking, etc) and
> centralization concerns

Right, purely these.  There is no place for artificially manipulating
expectations.

> they will simply advance the front and start another battle, because
> their true hidden faction is the "not ever side". Please, Jeff, Gavin,
> Mike, show me that I'm wrong on this point. Please, answer my question
> this time. If "not now", then when?

Bitcoin has all the hash power.  The merkle root has effectively
infinite capacity.  We should be asking HOW to scale the supporting
information propagation system appropriately, not WHEN to limit the
capacity of the primary time-stamping machine.

We haven't tried yet.  I can't answer for the people you asked, but
personally I haven't thought much about when we should declare failure.