6 ms·

Thanks for the overview. Very helpful to someone w/ no previous knowledge. Why did the majority of developers not want to raise the block size? / How exactly d

Thanks for the overview. Very helpful to someone w/ no previous knowledge. Why did the majority of developers not want to raise the block size? / How exactly does it make nodes much more expensive to operate?

pmorici 9y ago
There exact reasons are a point of contention. But a lot of people believe that they thought it was in their interest to keep the block size small because they hold a business interest in companies who's business plan is to make money by selling so called "second layer" solutions. The direction of development is really controlled by a handful of people and they also have control of 3 of the historically important Bitcoin discussion forums so they were able to control the narrative for years and push out anyone who brought up contrarian opinions on the block size.
Meekro 9y ago
Each node in Bitcoin's P2P network has to store a copy of every transaction since the beginning of time. This currently takes 140GB of disk space and is growing by 5GB per month. If more transactions are allowed to go through, it'll grow even faster. If it grows to extremely large numbers, only those who can afford the huge disk arrays will be able to run a node. The fear is that eventually, only major companies and universities will be running Bitcoin nodes. This could make it easier for governments to threaten all involved parties into changing or dismantling the system. However, those who want to raise the block size say that government agents threatening Bitcoin node operators is not a realistic fear. Whereas, if transactions can't go through because the network refuses to scale, then businesses will abort their plans to accept Bitcoin. To big blockers, such a scaling failure is much more likely to kill Bitcoin than government agents in dark suits.
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  Trying to work around the problem of all part transactions having to be present on a node by limiting the number of transactions that can happen honestly sounds like a silly joke. The entire point of any currency is easy, cheap and fast transactions.
  - Anderkent 9y ago
    > The entire point of any currency is easy, cheap and fast transactions. All of those are relative, and part of tradeoffs with other values. If you think those are the only important properties of a currency, you're missing the entire motivation behind crypto currencies.
    - ajmurmann 9y ago
      For a long time one of the big promises of Bitcoin was that you can easily, cheaply and quickly transfer them even to people in other countries. I assume the benefits you are referring to are political? Like lack of central per controlling it? If so, I don't think that will run over every day Joe.

pmorici 9y ago

There exact reasons are a point of contention. But a lot of people believe that they thought it was in their interest to keep the block size small because they hold a business interest in companies who's business plan is to make money by selling so called "second layer" solutions. The direction of development is really controlled by a handful of people and they also have control of 3 of the historically important Bitcoin discussion forums so they were able to control the narrative for years and push out anyone who brought up contrarian opinions on the block size.

Meekro 9y ago

Each node in Bitcoin's P2P network has to store a copy of every transaction since the beginning of time. This currently takes 140GB of disk space and is growing by 5GB per month. If more transactions are allowed to go through, it'll grow even faster. If it grows to extremely large numbers, only those who can afford the huge disk arrays will be able to run a node. The fear is that eventually, only major companies and universities will be running Bitcoin nodes. This could make it easier for governments to threaten all involved parties into changing or dismantling the system. However, those who want to raise the block size say that government agents threatening Bitcoin node operators is not a realistic fear. Whereas, if transactions can't go through because the network refuses to scale, then businesses will abort their plans to accept Bitcoin. To big blockers, such a scaling failure is much more likely to kill Bitcoin than government agents in dark suits.

ajmurmann 9y ago
Trying to work around the problem of all part transactions having to be present on a node by limiting the number of transactions that can happen honestly sounds like a silly joke. The entire point of any currency is easy, cheap and fast transactions.
- Anderkent 9y ago
  > The entire point of any currency is easy, cheap and fast transactions. All of those are relative, and part of tradeoffs with other values. If you think those are the only important properties of a currency, you're missing the entire motivation behind crypto currencies.
  - ajmurmann 9y ago
    For a long time one of the big promises of Bitcoin was that you can easily, cheaply and quickly transfer them even to people in other countries. I assume the benefits you are referring to are political? Like lack of central per controlling it? If so, I don't think that will run over every day Joe.