Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Block size following technological growth

From: Hector Chu <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2015 13:19:18 +0100

On 4 August 2015 at 12:59, Jorge Timón <[email-masked]> wrote:

> That is not my position. Again, I don't know what the right blocksize
> for the short term is (I don't think anybody does).
>

You have no position (i.e. neutral). In other words, keeping the existing
limit.

> Therefore how the change can affect mining centralization must be the
> main concern, instead of (also artificial) projections about usage
> growth (no matter how organic their curves look).
>

The degree of mining decentralization is only one of many concerns. Users'
main concern is timely confirmation of low-fee transactions. Miners'
concern is the amount of profit they make.

> Also I don't think "hitting the limit" must be necessarily harmful and
> if it is, I don't understand why hitting it at 1MB will be more
> harmful than hitting it at 2MB, 8MB or 8GB.
>

The limit won't even get to be hit, because all the users that get thrown
out of Bitcoin will have moved over to a system supporting a larger block
size.

I don't know where you get your "majority" from or what it even means
> (majority of users, majority of the coins, of miners?)
>

The majority which the miners are beholden to is the economic majority.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Economic_majority

> But there's something I'm missing something there...why my position
> doesn't matter if it's not a majority?
>

Your position is only one of many and it does not carry excess weight to
the others. Individually it won't matter, because you can't control the
implementation that other people run.

> How is what the the majority has been told it's best an objective argument?
>

Don't fight the market. The way the system is designed, the miners will
follow along with what the economic majority have decided.

So if you say 8, I must ask, why not 9?
> Why 9 MB is not safe for mining centralization but 8 MB is?
>

8MB has simply been the focal point for this debate. 9MB is also safe if
8MB is, but I suppose the opponents will be even less happy with 9 than
with 8, and we don't want to unnecessarily increase the conflict.

It seems like the rationale it's always "the bigger the better" and
> the only limitation is what a few people concerned with mining
> centralization (while they still have time to discuss this) are
> willing to accept. If that's the case, then there won't be effectively
> any limit in the long term and Bitcoin will probably fail in its
> decentralization goals.
>

A one-time increase to 8MB is safer than a dynamically growing limit over
time for exactly this reason. Admittedly whenever the next debate to
increase the block size over 8MB happens it will be even more painful and
non-obvious, but that is the safety check to prevent unbounded block size
increase.