Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Fees and the block-finding process

From: Gavin Andresen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2015 10:12:05 -0400

On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 1:33 PM, Jorge Timón <[email-masked]> wrote:

>
> On Aug 7, 2015 5:55 PM, "Gavin Andresen" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> >
> > I think there are multiple reasons to raise the maximum block size, and
> yes, fear of Bad Things Happening as we run up against the 1MB limit is one
> of the reasons.
>
> What are the other reasons?
>
> > I take the opinion of smart engineers who actually do resource planning
> and have seen what happens when networks run out of capacity very seriously.
>
> When "the network runs out of capacity" (when we hit the limit) do we
> expect anything to happen apart from minimum market fees rising (above
> zero)?
> Obviously any consequences of fees rising are included in this concern.
>
It is frustrating to answer questions that we answered months ago,
especially when I linked to these in response to your recent "increase
advocates say that not increasing the max block size will KILL BITCOIN"
false claim:
  http://gavinandresen.ninja/why-increasing-the-max-block-size-is-urgent
  https://medium.com/@octskyward/crash-landing-f5cc19908e32

Executive summary: when networks get over-saturated, they become
unreliable.  Unreliable is bad.

Unreliable and expensive is extra bad, and that's where we're headed
without an increase to the max block size.

RE: the recent thread about "better deal with that type of thing now rather
than later" :  exactly the same argument can be made about changes needed
to support a larger block size-- "better to do that now than to do that
later."  I don't think either of those arguments are very convincing.

-- 
--
Gavin Andresen