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That's really baffling, I perceived quite the opposite.

by knocte 10y ago

pmorici 10y ago
Based on what? Can you name a single dev that expresses support for bigger blocks that hasn't been systematically ridiculed and excluded from Bitcoin Core development by the small block crowd? It isn't even possible to get an accurate perception of Bitcoin Unlimited support from reading the traditional Bitcoin discussion forums like /r/bitcoin because there is ZERO tolerance for discussion of bigger blocks unless it in a negative context.
- dpc59 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure this was a sarcastic shitcomment. People who have a basic idea of how finance works understand that decentralized financial products lead to market making.
- nadaviv 10y ago
  SegWit is a block size increase. Pretty much every developer in the bitcoin community supports SegWit.
  - lawn 10y ago
    > Pretty much every developer in the bitcoin community supports SegWit. Only in the censored outskirts. I recommend everyone to read John Blocke's articles: https://medium.com/@johnblocke/the-importance-of-clear-definitions-in-bitcoins-block-size-debate-f8ce550d0919#.i4vbed4ss https://medium.com/@johnblocke/the-importance-of-clear-defin... https://medium.com/@johnblocke/its-not-the-censorship-resistance-stupid-59a95e5f9b51#.2b1678j4o https://medium.com/@johnblocke/its-not-the-censorship-resist...
    - nadaviv 10y ago
      - 105 businesses and projects from the Bitcoin space support SegWit and are working on implementing it in their products: https://bitcoincore.org/en/segwit_adoption/ https://bitcoincore.org/en/segwit_adoption/ - 54 bitcoin developers signed the "capacity increase roadmap" published by Bitcoin Core: https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/capacity-increases https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/capacity-increases - 45 companies and individuals signed in support of Bitcoin Core: https://bitcoincore.org/en/supporters/ https://bitcoincore.org/en/supporters/ - 85% of the nodes on the network are running Bitcoin Core: https://coin.dance/nodes/share https://coin.dance/nodes/share All of that due to censorship in one subreddit, while there are multiple other forums that people talk in? I have to say, that's quite impressive.
      - pmorici 10y ago
        The censorship isn't just in /r/bitcoin it also happens on the dev mailing list, on the bitcoin.org website, and on the BitcoinTalk forum. BitcoinTalk, /r/bitcoin, and bitcoin.org are controlled by the same person.
      - jerguismi 10y ago
        Impressive numbers! Bad luck the only metric that happens to matters, miner vote, is still below 25% and seems to be going slightly down... http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ver9-10k.png http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ver9-10k.png
        simulx 10y ago
        No, actually, it's not safe to vote for a fork until a large percentage of nodes are on board. Miners are doing their job and waiting for the community first. It took me 4 months to upgrade my nodes because I'm not really "in the business" like I used to be. Probably a lot of other people are just slow too.
- xorcist 10y ago
  That's a false premise. There is a block size increase when segwit activates. The debate is mostly if we should have a hard fork as well as (or even instead of) a soft fork. I think most developers are rightly scared of a hard fork, especially as we've seen what happened to Etherium lately. There was double spending as every node was not perfectly aligned with this. And then, contrary to expectations, the old chain survived. "Would you like to pay with Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin Core or Bitcoin United?" That's not what anyone wants.
  - pmorici 10y ago
    The ETH / ETC situation was only possible because ETH has a much smaller block time than Bitcoin and the difficulty re-target happens every block instead of every 2016 blocks. The upshot for Bitcoin is that any chain with a minority of hashing power will die off. Dev's are just FUDing to keep control and scare people.
joshontheweb 10y ago
Can you expound on why? I'm interested in hearing both sides of this.
- cloakandswagger 10y ago
  I've been an outside observer of the block size debate for a while now, so here is my naive take on it: The anti-block size increase camp says that increasing the block size is only a temporary fix, and that no blockchain can accommodate Visa levels of throughput. They also posit that any increase in the block size will make running a full node more difficult, meaning Bitcoin will become more and more centralized and consolidated around the big mining pools that have the hardware to handle bigger block sizes. However, many in the anti camp are pro segwit (segregated witness), a code change that does several things and is the first step to enabling off-chain networks like Lightning Network. These are basically pools of Bitcoins tracked by networks off the blockchain that would allow you to instantly exchange Bitcoins to anyone else in your network. This is a big problem for miners who have poured lots of money into their rigs, because now the blockchain would be little more than a settlement network. There would be far more transactions occurring off the network, meaning less money for miners. Again I'm no expert on this but this seems to be the crux of the debate. The Core developers seem to be OK with having the blockchain relegated to being a settlement network (similar to how Visa, your bank and merchants work together), but many people are opposed to this, partly because these off-chain networks would quickly form large central "hubs" which would obviate many of the benefits of Bitcoin (anonymity, privacy, security and decentralization).
  - Laforet 10y ago
    I've also been keeping tabs on the debate and I agree with you except on one account: Not everyone want the Bitcoin to be the next Visa or Paypal, some are perfectly content with a 10 minute confirmation delay as long as the blockchain remains fully distributed and anonymous, whereas others see a business opportunity that could make themselves rich and influential down the line. The entire narrative about larger block making the network more centralised is a red herring. The network has been going in that direction for quite some time without a block size increase and in any case, going from 1MB to 2MB or even 16MB isn't going to change the economics of running a full node that much, which is to say there are no incentives for non-miners to host a full node at all, regardless of the alleged computing and network overhead (and worse, it can make you a more likely victim of DDoS attacks[0]). The entire point about keeping the 1MB limit (which was meant to be a temporary cap anyway) is to artificially create scarcity in transaction capacity and coerce people into accepting SegWit and eventually fully functional side chains. This is probably fine for those who believe that A. Bitcoin will become mainstream and B. the ends justify the means, but I find this to be a very unethical position to take. Disclaimer: I don't own a single cent in BTC, nor do I have association with anyone involved in the Bitcoin scene. [0]:http://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/the-latest-victims-of-ddos-attacks-banks-and-bitcoin-xt/ http://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/the-lates...

That's really baffling, I perceived quite the opposite.

by knocte 10y ago

That's really baffling, I perceived quite the opposite.

Based on what? Can you name a single dev that expresses support for bigger blocks that hasn't been systematically ridiculed and excluded from Bitcoin Core development by the small block crowd? It isn't even possible to get an accurate perception of Bitcoin Unlimited support from reading the traditional Bitcoin discussion forums like /r/bitcoin because there is ZERO tolerance for discussion of bigger blocks unless it in a negative context.

dpc59 10y ago
I'm pretty sure this was a sarcastic shitcomment. People who have a basic idea of how finance works understand that decentralized financial products lead to market making.
nadaviv 10y ago
SegWit is a block size increase. Pretty much every developer in the bitcoin community supports SegWit.
- lawn 10y ago
  > Pretty much every developer in the bitcoin community supports SegWit. Only in the censored outskirts. I recommend everyone to read John Blocke's articles: https://medium.com/@johnblocke/the-importance-of-clear-definitions-in-bitcoins-block-size-debate-f8ce550d0919#.i4vbed4ss https://medium.com/@johnblocke/the-importance-of-clear-defin... https://medium.com/@johnblocke/its-not-the-censorship-resistance-stupid-59a95e5f9b51#.2b1678j4o https://medium.com/@johnblocke/its-not-the-censorship-resist...
  - nadaviv 10y ago
    - 105 businesses and projects from the Bitcoin space support SegWit and are working on implementing it in their products: https://bitcoincore.org/en/segwit_adoption/ https://bitcoincore.org/en/segwit_adoption/ - 54 bitcoin developers signed the "capacity increase roadmap" published by Bitcoin Core: https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/capacity-increases https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/capacity-increases - 45 companies and individuals signed in support of Bitcoin Core: https://bitcoincore.org/en/supporters/ https://bitcoincore.org/en/supporters/ - 85% of the nodes on the network are running Bitcoin Core: https://coin.dance/nodes/share https://coin.dance/nodes/share All of that due to censorship in one subreddit, while there are multiple other forums that people talk in? I have to say, that's quite impressive.
    - pmorici 10y ago
      The censorship isn't just in /r/bitcoin it also happens on the dev mailing list, on the bitcoin.org website, and on the BitcoinTalk forum. BitcoinTalk, /r/bitcoin, and bitcoin.org are controlled by the same person.
    - jerguismi 10y ago
      Impressive numbers! Bad luck the only metric that happens to matters, miner vote, is still below 25% and seems to be going slightly down... http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ver9-10k.png http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ver9-10k.png
      - simulx 10y ago
        No, actually, it's not safe to vote for a fork until a large percentage of nodes are on board. Miners are doing their job and waiting for the community first. It took me 4 months to upgrade my nodes because I'm not really "in the business" like I used to be. Probably a lot of other people are just slow too.
xorcist 10y ago
That's a false premise. There is a block size increase when segwit activates. The debate is mostly if we should have a hard fork as well as (or even instead of) a soft fork. I think most developers are rightly scared of a hard fork, especially as we've seen what happened to Etherium lately. There was double spending as every node was not perfectly aligned with this. And then, contrary to expectations, the old chain survived. "Would you like to pay with Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin Core or Bitcoin United?" That's not what anyone wants.
- pmorici 10y ago
  The ETH / ETC situation was only possible because ETH has a much smaller block time than Bitcoin and the difficulty re-target happens every block instead of every 2016 blocks. The upshot for Bitcoin is that any chain with a minority of hashing power will die off. Dev's are just FUDing to keep control and scare people.

joshontheweb 10y ago

Can you expound on why? I'm interested in hearing both sides of this.

cloakandswagger 10y ago
I've been an outside observer of the block size debate for a while now, so here is my naive take on it: The anti-block size increase camp says that increasing the block size is only a temporary fix, and that no blockchain can accommodate Visa levels of throughput. They also posit that any increase in the block size will make running a full node more difficult, meaning Bitcoin will become more and more centralized and consolidated around the big mining pools that have the hardware to handle bigger block sizes. However, many in the anti camp are pro segwit (segregated witness), a code change that does several things and is the first step to enabling off-chain networks like Lightning Network. These are basically pools of Bitcoins tracked by networks off the blockchain that would allow you to instantly exchange Bitcoins to anyone else in your network. This is a big problem for miners who have poured lots of money into their rigs, because now the blockchain would be little more than a settlement network. There would be far more transactions occurring off the network, meaning less money for miners. Again I'm no expert on this but this seems to be the crux of the debate. The Core developers seem to be OK with having the blockchain relegated to being a settlement network (similar to how Visa, your bank and merchants work together), but many people are opposed to this, partly because these off-chain networks would quickly form large central "hubs" which would obviate many of the benefits of Bitcoin (anonymity, privacy, security and decentralization).
- Laforet 10y ago
  I've also been keeping tabs on the debate and I agree with you except on one account: Not everyone want the Bitcoin to be the next Visa or Paypal, some are perfectly content with a 10 minute confirmation delay as long as the blockchain remains fully distributed and anonymous, whereas others see a business opportunity that could make themselves rich and influential down the line. The entire narrative about larger block making the network more centralised is a red herring. The network has been going in that direction for quite some time without a block size increase and in any case, going from 1MB to 2MB or even 16MB isn't going to change the economics of running a full node that much, which is to say there are no incentives for non-miners to host a full node at all, regardless of the alleged computing and network overhead (and worse, it can make you a more likely victim of DDoS attacks[0]). The entire point about keeping the 1MB limit (which was meant to be a temporary cap anyway) is to artificially create scarcity in transaction capacity and coerce people into accepting SegWit and eventually fully functional side chains. This is probably fine for those who believe that A. Bitcoin will become mainstream and B. the ends justify the means, but I find this to be a very unethical position to take. Disclaimer: I don't own a single cent in BTC, nor do I have association with anyone involved in the Bitcoin scene. [0]:http://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/the-latest-victims-of-ddos-attacks-banks-and-bitcoin-xt/ http://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/the-lates...