Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] "A Transaction Fee Market Exists Without a Block Size Limit"--new research paper suggests

From: Hector Chu <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2015 12:35:53 +0100

On 5 August 2015 at 12:07, Adam Back <[email-masked]> wrote:

> This prediction market in block-size seems like something extremely
> complex to operate and keep secure in a decentralised fashion.

Why would it need to be decentralised? Bitcoin.org could run the exchange,
and the profits from the exchange could be used to fund Core development.

We also have no particular reason to suppose other than
> meta-incentive, that it should result in a secure parameter set.
>

Security is a continuous variable, trading off against others. If security
gradually begins to be threatened as a result of block size gradually
increasing, the concerns of users will be enough that the bears will gain
control over the bulls on the block size market.

I suspect that, while it is interesting in the abstract, it risks
> converting a complex security problem into an even more complex one,
> rather than constituting an incremental security improvement which is
> more the context of day to day discussions here.

Hard problems call for complex solutions.