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It's not. There's a lot of arguing and a main proponent of the "big blocks" camp has organised enough miners to current bitcoin scaling enhancements. They dem

It's not. There's a lot of arguing and a main proponent of the "big blocks" camp has organised enough miners to current bitcoin scaling enhancements. They demand bigger blocks before they allow further scaling enhancements.

wyldfire 10y ago
Doesn't segwit help mitigate some of the congestion?
- thescriptkiddie 10y ago
  No, segwit fixes the transaction malleability problem, which is unrelated to scaling.
- tinfoilman 10y ago
  Not out the box, To make use of Segwit wallet software must upgrade to support it, that is a lot of work for Wallets Devs that generally are not getting paid for their work. It is arriving as a soft fork to get round cores instances that hard forks cannot happen (even tho other cryptos have done it. Eth/XMR). The soft fork is not backwards compatible and bits exchanged by segwit will only be protected by segwit enabled nodes but in fairness with a 95% activation threshold that will be 95% of the network. We have a number of mining pools now stating that they will not run segwit without a hard fork for a block size increase, the est hashrate is 10-15% that will refuse to run it, this will either mean core need to change their 95% requirement OR simply say no block size increase and no segwit. Personally and sadly if bitcoin cannot grow past its current limits, I do not believe it will keep its first mover position. Just seems insane that something that was marked as a global payment network is limited in its size. It is like limiting BGP routing tables to a size and saying "only certain people can play", and if you want to play, just pay more.
  - zeven7 10y ago
    > with a 95% activation threshold that will be 95% of the network What happens to the other 5% of the network? Is it really a hard fork in disguise?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - thescriptkiddie 10y ago
      I'm not the person you replied to, but I can answer this. Segwit is technically a soft fork, which means that it has some degree of backwards compatibility. Segwit will be redefining a previously-unused opcode in the bitcoin stack machine, which all old clients should treat as a NOP. So old clients will continue to operate normally with old transactions, but they will see segwit transactions as junk and be unable to validate them. In the past this hasn't been much of a problem because soft forks have always implemented optional features. However this time it will be a problem, because the plan is to move all transactions over to Segwit. Any client that hasn't been upgraded once Segwit is activated will likely see no transactions at all, the same as if there had been a hard fork. So that's why they added a 95% activation threshold.
drcross 10y ago
The difference between arguing, discussion and debate is largely one of opinion.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
hultner 10y ago
So are true microtransactions currently infeasible due to transactions fees exceeding even CC-rates? I believe that were of mayor concern last time I checked up.
- zeven7 10y ago
  https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ currently recommends around $0.17 per transaction.
  - hultner 10y ago
    That's a lot more then I though, is that even reasonable? With today's digitalization even stock trading is commonly available at $0.1 in courtage fee, is it really feasible bitcoin to use double that if broad adoption is appreciated? Or is that not a prioritized goal? What stance does the bitcoin foundation take or whichever is the highest authority talking on behalf of the community?
    - zeven7 10y ago
      > What stance does the bitcoin foundation take or whichever is the highest authority talking on behalf of the community? From what I undertand, it's not a goal for Bitcoin Core (lead dev team for the official client). They want to make Bitcoin a "settlement layer" that serves as a foundation for other things to be built on top of. Lightning network[1] would be the layer built on top that supports microtransactions. There are others who believe that Bitcoin should be able to scale to support microtransactions and other features itself. There's a very large controversy in the community over this. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Lightning_Network https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Lightning_Network
- tylersmith 10y ago
  The position of Bitcoin Core is that fees should be high and microtransactions should be infeasible, except on Blockstream's Lightning Network. The reason is that decentralization has costs and they believe fees need to be high to pay for it.
tylersmith 10y ago
That's false. They're rejecting a hacked together half measure, not just any scaling enhancement.

wyldfire 10y ago

Doesn't segwit help mitigate some of the congestion?

thescriptkiddie 10y ago
No, segwit fixes the transaction malleability problem, which is unrelated to scaling.
tinfoilman 10y ago
Not out the box, To make use of Segwit wallet software must upgrade to support it, that is a lot of work for Wallets Devs that generally are not getting paid for their work. It is arriving as a soft fork to get round cores instances that hard forks cannot happen (even tho other cryptos have done it. Eth/XMR). The soft fork is not backwards compatible and bits exchanged by segwit will only be protected by segwit enabled nodes but in fairness with a 95% activation threshold that will be 95% of the network. We have a number of mining pools now stating that they will not run segwit without a hard fork for a block size increase, the est hashrate is 10-15% that will refuse to run it, this will either mean core need to change their 95% requirement OR simply say no block size increase and no segwit. Personally and sadly if bitcoin cannot grow past its current limits, I do not believe it will keep its first mover position. Just seems insane that something that was marked as a global payment network is limited in its size. It is like limiting BGP routing tables to a size and saying "only certain people can play", and if you want to play, just pay more.
- zeven7 10y ago
  > with a 95% activation threshold that will be 95% of the network What happens to the other 5% of the network? Is it really a hard fork in disguise?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - thescriptkiddie 10y ago
    I'm not the person you replied to, but I can answer this. Segwit is technically a soft fork, which means that it has some degree of backwards compatibility. Segwit will be redefining a previously-unused opcode in the bitcoin stack machine, which all old clients should treat as a NOP. So old clients will continue to operate normally with old transactions, but they will see segwit transactions as junk and be unable to validate them. In the past this hasn't been much of a problem because soft forks have always implemented optional features. However this time it will be a problem, because the plan is to move all transactions over to Segwit. Any client that hasn't been upgraded once Segwit is activated will likely see no transactions at all, the same as if there had been a hard fork. So that's why they added a 95% activation threshold.

drcross 10y ago

The difference between arguing, discussion and debate is largely one of opinion.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

hultner 10y ago

So are true microtransactions currently infeasible due to transactions fees exceeding even CC-rates? I believe that were of mayor concern last time I checked up.

zeven7 10y ago
https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ currently recommends around $0.17 per transaction.
- hultner 10y ago
  That's a lot more then I though, is that even reasonable? With today's digitalization even stock trading is commonly available at $0.1 in courtage fee, is it really feasible bitcoin to use double that if broad adoption is appreciated? Or is that not a prioritized goal? What stance does the bitcoin foundation take or whichever is the highest authority talking on behalf of the community?
  - zeven7 10y ago
    > What stance does the bitcoin foundation take or whichever is the highest authority talking on behalf of the community? From what I undertand, it's not a goal for Bitcoin Core (lead dev team for the official client). They want to make Bitcoin a "settlement layer" that serves as a foundation for other things to be built on top of. Lightning network[1] would be the layer built on top that supports microtransactions. There are others who believe that Bitcoin should be able to scale to support microtransactions and other features itself. There's a very large controversy in the community over this. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Lightning_Network https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Lightning_Network
tylersmith 10y ago
The position of Bitcoin Core is that fees should be high and microtransactions should be infeasible, except on Blockstream's Lightning Network. The reason is that decentralization has costs and they believe fees need to be high to pay for it.

tylersmith 10y ago

That's false. They're rejecting a hacked together half measure, not just any scaling enhancement.