Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Dynamically Controlled Bitcoin Block Size Max Cap [BIP 1xx - Draft]

From: Eric Voskuil <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2015 14:28:11 -0700

> just as in democracy in general

One should be clear that Bitcoin is by no possible measure a democracy.

The proposed vote is on what goes into a particular github repository.
The outcome is ultimately controlled by those with control of that
repository.

Bitcoin is an anarchy by design. People will use whatever they want.

e

On 08/25/2015 02:14 PM, Matt Whitlock via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> On Tuesday, 25 August 2015, at 1:37 pm, Peter Todd wrote:
>> 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.
>>>
>>> What fraction of coin holders do you suppose will vote? And, of
those, what 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 aren't going to be able to vote meaningfully, and
most won't respond to the poll 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.
>
> Yes, car buyers do make those kinds of decisions through market
mechanisms. An equivalent process for Bitcoin would be that the max
block-size limit (and other fundamental economic parameters) would be
determined via a process of forking off altcoins (such as Bitcoin XT
will do) and allowing the market to decide which coin is most valuable.
This is the "default" mechanism for change (because it's what naturally
happens when there is a lack of internal consensus), but it's not the
least painful mechanism.
>
> My point still stands that — just as in democracy in general — the
voters are really in no position to cast informed votes, nor should they
be (cf. "rational ignorance" [1]). I do not oppose opening up the
determination of the max block-size limit to a popular "check" via
stakeholder vote — actually, I think this is an important check on
miners' power — but I do argue that the vote is likely to have
drastically little participation and very low-quality results.
>
> [1] Rational Ignorance: «Ignorance about an issue is said to be
"rational" when the cost of educating oneself about the issue
sufficiently to make an informed decision can outweigh any potential
benefit one could reasonably expect to gain from that decision, and so
it would be irrational to waste time doing so.»
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance>