Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Proposal: Vote on the blocksize limit with proof-of-stake voting

From: John Dillon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 04:59:45 +0000

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 4:44 AM, Edmund Broadley <[email-masked]> wrote:
> I really like this idea. I also like that users with no clue will leave
> their vote to the default chosen by the software developers, which hopefully
> will be 1MB. I like how coin age is factored in do votes are hopefully
> proportional to bitcoin assert ownership.

The default should *not* be set by wallets at all in fact. The default is that
by not voting, you accept the status quo, which is defined as the mean of the
old and new limits in the past year.

So lets say the limit is 1MB, and through voting it ends up at 2MB in one year.
Until that time by not voting you are in effect voting for the limit to be 1MB,
but after the next interval you not voting is equivalent to voting for a 1.5MB
limit. A subtle issue is then txout age, and at that point a 1.5 year old txout
should be like voting for the 1MB limit still, albeit weighted less. What you
don't want is your lack of vote to suddenly turn into a 1.5MB vote. This makes
sure that at all levels the increases are gradual rather than abrupt, although
the rate of increase may still be quite fast if the community votes that way.
(first derivative of the limit is a close approximation to a continuous
function)