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This is a really bizarre rational, disk space is insanely cheap and simply storing the blockchain does nothing to actually validate transactions or contribute t

This is a really bizarre rational, disk space is insanely cheap and simply storing the blockchain does nothing to actually validate transactions or contribute to the network. 8000GB drives cost about $150 now. Storage is getting cheaper. Why not change the PoW hash algo to avoid costly ASICs and help decentralize the more important aspect of blockchain transaction verification?

Ajedi32 9y ago
> 8000GB drives cost about $150 now That's enough to handle the blockchain size increasing by one order of magnitude. I just talked about a scenario where it could conceivably increase by 3. Storage is indeed cheap, but not _that_ cheap. Unless you're envisioning a scenario where only large stakeholders like miners and exchanges ever have to store a full copy of the blockchain.
- colordrops 9y ago
  Why would transactions increase but not space per dollar? Has disk technology stopped progressing? The time it takes to increase by 3 is probably the amount of time disk space will increase by 3 at the same cost.
  - __blockcipher__ 9y ago
    Exactly. Costs for computing/disk storage go down exponentially. Cryptocurrency tx/sec goes up exponentially. As long as the two rates roughly cancel out, we're okay. If they're massively different rates, then you're still dealing with an exponential which is difficult. Either way though, lightning is a linear benefit, not an exponential one. And it comes at the cost of breaking everything that made bitcoin great in the first place. I don't ever want to have to deal with an intermediary financial institution again. Somehow, the pro-BTC side of the chain thinks that view is ridiculous.
    - vokep 9y ago
      The "Pro-BTC" side is really Pro-neoBTC, oldBTC, satoshis BTC was all about never dealing with an intermediary unless you choose to for whatever weird reason.
- SnowProblem 9y ago
  What makes you think you need to store the whole blockchain? Older blocks can be pruned. The whitepaper discussed this. The UXTO set is all that's needed for block validation, and that's quite small (currently ~50M).
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    Sounds great. Why haven't we done that yet? Like I said, the blockchain is currently ~150 GB. Seems to me it's already overdue for a good pruning.
    - gruez 9y ago
      pruning was added almost 3 years ago https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.11.0.md https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-n...
      - Ajedi32 9y ago
        My point is: why do people still store full copies of the chain? If there are no downsides to this, why didn't we purge that 150 GB of useless data from the network a long time ago? And if people still _do_ need the full chain, then obviously that solution isn't sufficient to eliminate the problem I outlined in my previous comments.
        SnowProblem 9y ago
        Because right now you can't distribute the UXTO set in a trustless way. Core developers blocked it two years ago for nonsensical reasons [1], one of the many reasons the community doesn't trust them. Work has picked up on this in BCH [2]. [1] https://bitcoincore.org/en/meetings/2016/03/10/#initial-block-download-ibd-with-pre-generated-signed-utxos https://bitcoincore.org/en/meetings/2016/03/10/#initial-bloc... [2] https://github.com/bitcoincashorg/workgroups/blob/master/wg-utxocommit-sync/workgroup.md https://github.com/bitcoincashorg/workgroups/blob/master/wg-...

Ajedi32 9y ago

> 8000GB drives cost about $150 now That's enough to handle the blockchain size increasing by one order of magnitude. I just talked about a scenario where it could conceivably increase by 3. Storage is indeed cheap, but not _that_ cheap. Unless you're envisioning a scenario where only large stakeholders like miners and exchanges ever have to store a full copy of the blockchain.

colordrops 9y ago
Why would transactions increase but not space per dollar? Has disk technology stopped progressing? The time it takes to increase by 3 is probably the amount of time disk space will increase by 3 at the same cost.
- __blockcipher__ 9y ago
  Exactly. Costs for computing/disk storage go down exponentially. Cryptocurrency tx/sec goes up exponentially. As long as the two rates roughly cancel out, we're okay. If they're massively different rates, then you're still dealing with an exponential which is difficult. Either way though, lightning is a linear benefit, not an exponential one. And it comes at the cost of breaking everything that made bitcoin great in the first place. I don't ever want to have to deal with an intermediary financial institution again. Somehow, the pro-BTC side of the chain thinks that view is ridiculous.
  - vokep 9y ago
    The "Pro-BTC" side is really Pro-neoBTC, oldBTC, satoshis BTC was all about never dealing with an intermediary unless you choose to for whatever weird reason.
SnowProblem 9y ago
What makes you think you need to store the whole blockchain? Older blocks can be pruned. The whitepaper discussed this. The UXTO set is all that's needed for block validation, and that's quite small (currently ~50M).
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  Sounds great. Why haven't we done that yet? Like I said, the blockchain is currently ~150 GB. Seems to me it's already overdue for a good pruning.
  - gruez 9y ago
    pruning was added almost 3 years ago https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.11.0.md https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-n...
    - Ajedi32 9y ago
      My point is: why do people still store full copies of the chain? If there are no downsides to this, why didn't we purge that 150 GB of useless data from the network a long time ago? And if people still _do_ need the full chain, then obviously that solution isn't sufficient to eliminate the problem I outlined in my previous comments.
      - SnowProblem 9y ago
        Because right now you can't distribute the UXTO set in a trustless way. Core developers blocked it two years ago for nonsensical reasons [1], one of the many reasons the community doesn't trust them. Work has picked up on this in BCH [2]. [1] https://bitcoincore.org/en/meetings/2016/03/10/#initial-block-download-ibd-with-pre-generated-signed-utxos https://bitcoincore.org/en/meetings/2016/03/10/#initial-bloc... [2] https://github.com/bitcoincashorg/workgroups/blob/master/wg-utxocommit-sync/workgroup.md https://github.com/bitcoincashorg/workgroups/blob/master/wg-...