3 ms·

You are both right and wrong. There have been multiple attempts at scaling Bitcoin on-chain by raising the blocksize. They have all been unsuccessful because t

by lawn 9y ago

You are both right and wrong. There have been multiple attempts at scaling Bitcoin on-chain by raising the blocksize. They have all been unsuccessful because they have been blocked by the Core developers and their supporters using censorship, troll campaigns, ddos and abuse. It's not due to technical reasons but because they want to redirect scaling off-chain, using technology they coveniently develop. The very same developers actually supported bigger blocks a couple of years ago but changed their tone to support the scaling approach their company favors. After the last attempt (Segwit2x) it's clear Bitcoin won't scale on-chain. However the technical limits of the technology ha never been reached, tested or even been fully researched. Bitcoin Cash is for example a fork which aims to scale on-chain by increasing the block size. If all transactions from Bitcoin would be done on Bitcoin Cash the network would work fine today. Where the actual limit is we don't know. It's probably not possible to support every financial transaction for everyone. For that we do need off-chain scaling in addition to many other improvements.

gruez 9y ago
>It's not due to technical reasons but because they want to redirect scaling off-chain, using technology they coveniently develop. But how does that benefit them? Lightning network is open source, so it's not like they can make money on transaction fees.
- etherael 9y ago
  https://mobile.twitter.com/adam3us/status/923309367260274688 https://mobile.twitter.com/adam3us/status/923309367260274688 Good reason to believe the entire thing was simply the old system attempting to hijack bitcoin. https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7fsbw5/divorcing_the_settlement_and_transaction_layers/?utm_content=title&utm_medium=user&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=frontpage https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7fsbw5/divorcing_the_s...
  - gruez 9y ago
    >https://mobile.twitter.com/adam3us/status/923309367260274688 https://mobile.twitter.com/adam3us/status/923309367260274688 selling a SaaS (presumably with support) to enterprises is a bad thing now? >Good reason to believe the entire thing was simply the old system attempting to hijack bitcoin. >https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7fsbw5/divorcing_the_s.. https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7fsbw5/divorcing_the_s.... most of the post wasn't really relevant to the on-chain vs off-chain discussion, so i'm going to quote (what i think is) the relevant bits >The divorce of the transaction layer from the settlement layer enables corrupt influence and tampering within the system in much the exact same way as the fiat system. [...] The core treachery that has been inflicted upon the project is what? You guessed it; to divorce the settlement and transaction layers from one another, which makes it once again subject to the exact same weaknesses as gold in the modern world with its laughable 542 to 1 paper to physical transaction to settlement layer. how i'm understanding the argument it is that by separating the transaction/settlement layer, it would lead to fractional reserve banking, as seen in fiat currencies. how does lighting network achieve that? to start a payment channel that can handle x BTC in net transactions, you have to lock x BTC beforehand, so it's not like using lighting network is equivalent to issuing IOUs for bitcoin. am i missing something?
dr_win 9y ago
Maybe you are right and it would be technically feasible to bump the block size limit 2x, then 2x again and maybe later 2x again... Basically every time people demand extra cheap block space for their transactions someone would have to lead the charge and coordinate a hard-fork (probably with a lot of drama). But then we (as a community) would set a dangerous moral hazard there and be like the U.S. Senate increasing the debt ceiling limit every year or so. For reference this is a year-old article from Gregory Maxwell, a prominent Bitcoin Core developer, explaining his view: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/438hx0/a_trip_to_the_moon_requires_a_rocket_with/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/438hx0/a_trip_to_t... I think Greg is right. And at least this scaling situation puts a lot of pressure on Bitcoin blockchain and accelerates whole ecosystem to quickly develop and deploy layer-2 solutions like Lighting Networks or parallel 2-way-pegged solutions like sidechains. Which is in my opinion a good thing even for the price of hampering Bitcoin growth in short-term. And from technical point it is beneficial that Bitcoin Cash folks forked the chain and will experiment with their own scaling solutions. It will be interesting to watch future technical developments on both sides.
- lawn 9y ago
  Which is why a dynamic block size should be implemented. (This is on the roadmap for Bitcoin Cash). For reference here's a paper by Peter R, a prominent Bitcoin Unlimited developer, arguing that a blocksize limit is unnecessary: https://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/resources/feemarket.pdf https://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/resources/feemarket.pdf Who's right I do not know. But even if Greg is right he's worrying about a potential problem decades from now. We have very real problems right now we should solve first. I would also be wary of any claims Greg makes as he has clear conflict of interests against raising the blocksize. He's one of the founders of Blockstream whose goal is to earn money developing 2nd layer solutions. With working on-chain transactions what use would their 2nd layer solutions have?

by lawn 9y ago

gruez 9y ago

>It's not due to technical reasons but because they want to redirect scaling off-chain, using technology they coveniently develop. But how does that benefit them? Lightning network is open source, so it's not like they can make money on transaction fees.

etherael 9y ago
https://mobile.twitter.com/adam3us/status/923309367260274688 https://mobile.twitter.com/adam3us/status/923309367260274688 Good reason to believe the entire thing was simply the old system attempting to hijack bitcoin. https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7fsbw5/divorcing_the_settlement_and_transaction_layers/?utm_content=title&utm_medium=user&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=frontpage https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7fsbw5/divorcing_the_s...
- gruez 9y ago
  >https://mobile.twitter.com/adam3us/status/923309367260274688 https://mobile.twitter.com/adam3us/status/923309367260274688 selling a SaaS (presumably with support) to enterprises is a bad thing now? >Good reason to believe the entire thing was simply the old system attempting to hijack bitcoin. >https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7fsbw5/divorcing_the_s.. https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7fsbw5/divorcing_the_s.... most of the post wasn't really relevant to the on-chain vs off-chain discussion, so i'm going to quote (what i think is) the relevant bits >The divorce of the transaction layer from the settlement layer enables corrupt influence and tampering within the system in much the exact same way as the fiat system. [...] The core treachery that has been inflicted upon the project is what? You guessed it; to divorce the settlement and transaction layers from one another, which makes it once again subject to the exact same weaknesses as gold in the modern world with its laughable 542 to 1 paper to physical transaction to settlement layer. how i'm understanding the argument it is that by separating the transaction/settlement layer, it would lead to fractional reserve banking, as seen in fiat currencies. how does lighting network achieve that? to start a payment channel that can handle x BTC in net transactions, you have to lock x BTC beforehand, so it's not like using lighting network is equivalent to issuing IOUs for bitcoin. am i missing something?

dr_win 9y ago

Maybe you are right and it would be technically feasible to bump the block size limit 2x, then 2x again and maybe later 2x again... Basically every time people demand extra cheap block space for their transactions someone would have to lead the charge and coordinate a hard-fork (probably with a lot of drama). But then we (as a community) would set a dangerous moral hazard there and be like the U.S. Senate increasing the debt ceiling limit every year or so. For reference this is a year-old article from Gregory Maxwell, a prominent Bitcoin Core developer, explaining his view: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/438hx0/a_trip_to_the_moon_requires_a_rocket_with/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/438hx0/a_trip_to_t... I think Greg is right. And at least this scaling situation puts a lot of pressure on Bitcoin blockchain and accelerates whole ecosystem to quickly develop and deploy layer-2 solutions like Lighting Networks or parallel 2-way-pegged solutions like sidechains. Which is in my opinion a good thing even for the price of hampering Bitcoin growth in short-term. And from technical point it is beneficial that Bitcoin Cash folks forked the chain and will experiment with their own scaling solutions. It will be interesting to watch future technical developments on both sides.

lawn 9y ago
Which is why a dynamic block size should be implemented. (This is on the roadmap for Bitcoin Cash). For reference here's a paper by Peter R, a prominent Bitcoin Unlimited developer, arguing that a blocksize limit is unnecessary: https://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/resources/feemarket.pdf https://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/resources/feemarket.pdf Who's right I do not know. But even if Greg is right he's worrying about a potential problem decades from now. We have very real problems right now we should solve first. I would also be wary of any claims Greg makes as he has clear conflict of interests against raising the blocksize. He's one of the founders of Blockstream whose goal is to earn money developing 2nd layer solutions. With working on-chain transactions what use would their 2nd layer solutions have?