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

From: Gavin Andresen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 13:19:44 -0400

On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 1:05 PM, Mike Hearn <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Isn't that a step backwards, then? I see no reason for fee pressure to
>> exist at the moment. All it's doing is turning away users for no purpose:
>> mining isn't supported by fees, and the tiny fees we use right now seem to
>> be good enough to stop penny flooding.
>>
>
> Why not set the max size to be 20x the average size? Why 2x, given you
> just pointed out that'd result in blocks shrinking rather than growing.
>

Twenty is scary.

And two is a very neutral number: if 50% of hashpower want the max size to
grow as fast as possible and 50% are dead-set opposed to any increase in
max size, then half produce blocks 2 times as big, half produce empty
blocks, and the max size doesn't change. If it was 20, then a small
minority of miners could force a max size increase.  (if it is less than 2,
then a minority of minors can force the block size down)

As for whether there "should" be fee pressure now or not: I have no
opinion, besides "we should make block propagation faster so there is no
technical reason for miners to produce tiny blocks." I don't think us
developers should be deciding things like whether or not fees are too high,
too low, .....

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Gavin Andresen