Re: [bitcoin-dev] Hard fork proposal from last week's meeting

From: Jeremy <jlrubin@mit•edu>
To: Wang Chun <1240902@gmail•com>,
	Bitcoin Protocol Discussion
	<bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Hard fork proposal from last week's meeting
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2017 13:33:31 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAD5xwhgU9orUAsY00PbGPH7-SuoGYF3bCigBwm1BOoDtPn26cQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAFzgq-xnXw6efaEurLcgMQQwwr7YitrJ3vZ8i+Ha0MbnVzUKhg@mail.gmail.com>

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I think it's probably safer to have a fork-to-minumum (e.g. minimal
coinbase+header) after a certain date than to fork up at a certain date. At
least in that case, the default isn't breaking consensus, but you still get
the same pressure to fork to a permanent solution.

I don't endorse the above proposal, but remarked for the sake of guiding
the argument you are making.

--
@JeremyRubin <https://twitter.com/JeremyRubin>
<https://twitter.com/JeremyRubin>

On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 1:31 PM, Wang Chun via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> The basic idea is, let's stop the debate for whether we should upgrade
> to 2MB, 8MB or 32MiB. 32MiB is well above any proposals' upper limit,
> so any final decision would be a soft fork to this already deployed
> release. If by 2020, we still agree 1MB is enough, it can be changed
> back to 1MB limit and it would also a soft fork on top of that.
>
> On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 1:23 AM, Alphonse Pace <alp.bitcoin@gmail•com>
> wrote:
> > What meeting are you referring to?  Who were the participants?
> >
> > Removing the limit but relying on the p2p protocol is not really a true
> > 32MiB limit, but a limit of whatever transport methods provide.  This can
> > lead to differing consensus if alternative layers for relaying are used.
> > What you seem to be asking for is an unbound block size (or at least
> > determined by whatever miners produce).  This has the possibility (and
> even
> > likelihood) of removing many participants from the network, including
> many
> > small miners.
> >
> > 32MB in less than 3 years also appears to be far beyond limits of safety
> > which are known to exist far sooner, and we cannot expect hardware and
> > networking layers to improve by those amounts in that time.
> >
> > It also seems like it would be much better to wait until SegWit
> activates in
> > order to truly measure the effects on the network from this increased
> > capacity before committing to any additional increases.
> >
> > -Alphonse
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 11:59 AM, Wang Chun via bitcoin-dev
> > <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> I've proposed this hard fork approach last year in Hong Kong Consensus
> >> but immediately rejected by coredevs at that meeting, after more than
> >> one year it seems that lots of people haven't heard of it. So I would
> >> post this here again for comment.
> >>
> >> The basic idea is, as many of us agree, hard fork is risky and should
> >> be well prepared. We need a long time to deploy it.
> >>
> >> Despite spam tx on the network, the block capacity is approaching its
> >> limit, and we must think ahead. Shall we code a patch right now, to
> >> remove the block size limit of 1MB, but not activate it until far in
> >> the future. I would propose to remove the 1MB limit at the next block
> >> halving in spring 2020, only limit the block size to 32MiB which is
> >> the maximum size the current p2p protocol allows. This patch must be
> >> in the immediate next release of Bitcoin Core.
> >>
> >> With this patch in core's next release, Bitcoin works just as before,
> >> no fork will ever occur, until spring 2020. But everyone knows there
> >> will be a fork scheduled. Third party services, libraries, wallets and
> >> exchanges will have enough time to prepare for it over the next three
> >> years.
> >>
> >> We don't yet have an agreement on how to increase the block size
> >> limit. There have been many proposals over the past years, like
> >> BIP100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 148, 248, BU, and so
> >> on. These hard fork proposals, with this patch already in Core's
> >> release, they all become soft fork. We'll have enough time to discuss
> >> all these proposals and decide which one to go. Take an example, if we
> >> choose to fork to only 2MB, since 32MiB already scheduled, reduce it
> >> from 32MiB to 2MB will be a soft fork.
> >>
> >> Anyway, we must code something right now, before it becomes too late.
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> >> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> >> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
> >
> >
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