Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Max Block Size: Simple Voting Procedure

From: Pindar Wong <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 12:18:22 +0800

On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 10:33 AM, Stephen Morse <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> Pindar,
>
> yes and it's a good idea to separate the hard/soft fork upgrades. The
>> point being here is that we're also establishing a process for the
>> community to self-determine the way forward in a transparent and verifiable
>> manner.
>>
>> What's not to like? :)
>>
>> I'll probably have some time on Sunday to help hack something up but I
>> don't think this is that heavy a coding lift? What am I missing?
>>
>
> As Matt mentioned, many members of the bitcoin community would be hesitant
> about giving miners this much power.
>

I understand this concern and it's a valid one, including other dimensions
such as better decentralization. Some might argue that the mining pools in
China currently have such power and that's a bad thing:-

https://blockchain.info/pools

I happen to think  that it's unhealthy for the network but the irony is
that they are huge bitcoin fanbase that perhaps should be involved in this,
and other,  decisions. The question is how.

Thus far our friends from f2pool have chimed in with some data from their
perspective. It would be interesting to hear from the others and I'm
finding ways to do exactly that.

So let's find a way to involve, and not alienate them or others. Let's find
a way to get more data and test assumptions and boundaries.

It essentially lets them vote to change the rules of the system.

It's data and yes, it gives then a very visible, verifiable 'vote' ...
though I prefer to think of this as 'voice'  as in a ' hummmm. '

But miners are not the only part of this ecosystem, and they are not the
> only ones affected by the choice of block size limit, so they probably
> shouldn't be the only ones with a vote.
>

I fully agree and it doesn't have to be the only voice ...  think 'choir'
...  after all this is an ecosystem with each party playing their
respective roles. But sustainable ecosystems have 'keystone' species, and I
believe these to be the 'honest' miners that help secure the network.

Instead, we vote with the software we run, and all upgrade.

or not as the case may be.   I think we're trying to find a level of rough
consensus where members of the community feel comfortable enough to do this
upgrade in their respective codebase.

>
> So, while I think an idea like this has its merits, I would bet that it's
> fairly unlikely to get enough support to be merged into bitcoin core.
>

Bitcoin was 'unlikely' ...  yet it happened.

Nevertheless you raise the possibility of a different possible path forward
and that's positive. So thank you for doing that!

Bitcoin's humming in China, behind an GFW ... who could have guessed?

'Connect and Liberate' :)

p.

> Best,
> Stephen