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There are no real technical arguments against increasing to 2MB, only political. The main actors against a block size increase are Core developers who are also

by lawn 9y ago

There are no real technical arguments against increasing to 2MB, only political. The main actors against a block size increase are Core developers who are also part of a company called Blockstream. Blockstream's business model is about selling side chains. But why use side chains if you can use on chain transactions instead? Well if you limit on chain scaling users would be forced on to your side chains... The movement against the Segwit2x upgrade was so fierce precisely because it threatened to offset Core as the de facto Bitcoin client, making them loose their power. They profit heavily from censorship on the bitcoin mailing list, the "bitcoin" subreddit and bitcoin.org. Their consistent propaganda and abuse has now caused the miners and businesses to back down on the Segwit2x upgrade, which would have been a certainty with 95% hashpower and business support. Keep these things in mind and you should get a better picture.

wol_ 9y ago
peddle your conspiracy theories elsewhere.
xorcist 9y ago
There have been a number of technical arguments put forth on the mailing list, and the discussion is much wider than the few developers who work for Blockstream. It is easy to introduce bias when following development through secondary sources. The development mailing list is mostly non technical enough that interested Bitcoiners can follow along, which would perhaps facilitate a more nuanced understanding how protocol extension proposals are being developed.
- lawn 9y ago
  Yes I do follow the moderated mailing list and also other more open ones. The argument still stands.
hndamien 9y ago
There is also the contention that increasing blocksize would make running full nodes harder (at least by some margin) which therefore means an increase in centralisation (by a proportional margin). It would also set a precedent that miners are in control (or alternatively it could be interpreted as no-one is in control). The question then transaction speed and low fees are more important than the marginal increase in centralisation. Core would argue that any increase in centralisation is too much. Not sure why they think middle men are acceptable though.
- lawn 9y ago
  > There is also the contention that increasing blocksize would make running full nodes harder (at least by some margin) which therefore means an increase in centralisation (by a proportional margin) Yet there is no attempt to quantify by how much. The damage done to Bitcoin by full blocks is much more than what a potential increase to 2MB would cause. This zero tolerance policy rhymes extremely poorly when the fees makes Bitcoin more expensive to use than to run a full node. > It would also set a precedent that miners are in control (or alternatively it could be interpreted as no-one is in control). Miners are in control because the real power lies with them. The problem is that they aren't coordinated and so status quo is favored.
tlrobinson 9y ago
I don’t buy the argument that Core opposed Segwit2x because it threatens Blockstream’s business model or influence in the community. First of all, if Segwit2x did succeed then Core could swallow their pride and simply update Bitcoin Core’s consensus rules to match btc1’s, and I think most users would prefer to continue to run Core. Second, if Bitcoin is eventually widely used it would need more than doubling of the block size to scale, even with sidechains or LN. Also, scaling isn’t the only use for sidechains. Third, many of Blockstream’s founders and team are long-time Bitcoiners and cypherpunks. I’d like to believe they would not compromise Bitcoin for the benefit of their company alone, but perhaps that’s naïve.
- sobani 9y ago
  Your first point is not a contradiction. You can disagree with something for whatever reason, but still want to participate in whatever proposal 'wins'. If you prefer baseball over football, but all your friends are playing football, would you rather join your friends, or play by yourself?
grover_hartmann 9y ago
Go back to r/btc with your propaganda.
- sctb 9y ago
  We just asked you to stop breaking the guidelines with unsubstantive comments. Would you please stop? We ban accounts that won't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by lawn 9y ago

wol_ 9y ago

peddle your conspiracy theories elsewhere.

xorcist 9y ago

There have been a number of technical arguments put forth on the mailing list, and the discussion is much wider than the few developers who work for Blockstream. It is easy to introduce bias when following development through secondary sources. The development mailing list is mostly non technical enough that interested Bitcoiners can follow along, which would perhaps facilitate a more nuanced understanding how protocol extension proposals are being developed.

lawn 9y ago
Yes I do follow the moderated mailing list and also other more open ones. The argument still stands.

hndamien 9y ago

There is also the contention that increasing blocksize would make running full nodes harder (at least by some margin) which therefore means an increase in centralisation (by a proportional margin). It would also set a precedent that miners are in control (or alternatively it could be interpreted as no-one is in control). The question then transaction speed and low fees are more important than the marginal increase in centralisation. Core would argue that any increase in centralisation is too much. Not sure why they think middle men are acceptable though.

lawn 9y ago
> There is also the contention that increasing blocksize would make running full nodes harder (at least by some margin) which therefore means an increase in centralisation (by a proportional margin) Yet there is no attempt to quantify by how much. The damage done to Bitcoin by full blocks is much more than what a potential increase to 2MB would cause. This zero tolerance policy rhymes extremely poorly when the fees makes Bitcoin more expensive to use than to run a full node. > It would also set a precedent that miners are in control (or alternatively it could be interpreted as no-one is in control). Miners are in control because the real power lies with them. The problem is that they aren't coordinated and so status quo is favored.

tlrobinson 9y ago

I don’t buy the argument that Core opposed Segwit2x because it threatens Blockstream’s business model or influence in the community. First of all, if Segwit2x did succeed then Core could swallow their pride and simply update Bitcoin Core’s consensus rules to match btc1’s, and I think most users would prefer to continue to run Core. Second, if Bitcoin is eventually widely used it would need more than doubling of the block size to scale, even with sidechains or LN. Also, scaling isn’t the only use for sidechains. Third, many of Blockstream’s founders and team are long-time Bitcoiners and cypherpunks. I’d like to believe they would not compromise Bitcoin for the benefit of their company alone, but perhaps that’s naïve.

sobani 9y ago
Your first point is not a contradiction. You can disagree with something for whatever reason, but still want to participate in whatever proposal 'wins'. If you prefer baseball over football, but all your friends are playing football, would you rather join your friends, or play by yourself?

grover_hartmann 9y ago

Go back to r/btc with your propaganda.

sctb 9y ago
We just asked you to stop breaking the guidelines with unsubstantive comments. Would you please stop? We ban accounts that won't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html