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Every single crypto that has tried to pass that limitation has remained centralised in one way or another. You can either: 1) have centralisation 2) assume st

Every single crypto that has tried to pass that limitation has remained centralised in one way or another. You can either: 1) have centralisation 2) assume storage space will expand exponentially since the entire point of bitcoin is many many copies of its ledger 3) come up with a new method more secure than PoW but still decentralised Good luck with (3). (1) and (2) are not good choices. So they moved it off the chain into lightning network.

dane-pgp 7y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by "assume storage space will expand exponentially", since there is only a limited number of potential active crypto-currency users, making a small number of daily transactions (ignoring things like High Frequency Trading), recorded in a blockchain that grows linearly over time. Would you say that the credit card network, or PayPal, has exponentially increasing storage requirements? It's possible for Bitcoin (for example) to be decentralised and useful to the world and only require linearly increasing storage space. Fortunately it seems that storage technology will continue to scale linearly over the coming years too: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15064/seagate-roadmap.png https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15064/seagate-roadmap.png
- hnews_account_1 7y ago
  I should've phrased that better. What I meant was to assume consumer affordable storage space will increase in size exponentially i.e. if we pay $0.01 / GB today, we should be paying fractions of that fraction in a year (because obviously "exponential" is loose term here). > (ignoring things like High Frequency Trading) HFT is not a blockchain transaction. They are off blockchain transactions entirely because they trade money between bitcoin / other cryptos and dollars. > there is only a limited number of potential active crypto-currency users My entire point is that this limits them from growing. If the blockchain is kept from exploding, it helps to onboard more users. > Would you say that the credit card network, or PayPal, has exponentially increasing storage requirements? Indeed not. But their user base is now standardised. So they have a predictable number of transactions every second. However, their storage requirements are still obviously industrial grade server farms. The point of bitcoin is that everyone should have a copy of every transaction (excluding lightning network transactions). You see the connection? Not all of us can have our own server farms. If we all wants to store every transaction in the way the parent of my previous comment alluded to (increase block size), each of us will need our own mini server farm i.e. exponential storage growth. > It's possible for Bitcoin (for example) to be decentralised and useful to the world and only require linearly increasing storage space. Yes. It'll level off at some point. But we are far, faaar away from that point. So it'll take quite a while before it levels off.
  - dane-pgp 7y ago
    > The point of bitcoin is that everyone should have a copy of every transaction (excluding lightning network transactions). Is that the point of bitcoin? Satoshi said: > Long before the network gets anywhere near as large as that, it would be safe for users to use Simplified Payment Verification (section 8) to check for double spending, which only requires having the chain of block headers, or about 12KB per day. Only people trying to create new coins would need to run network nodes. https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/ https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/ (He also didn't say anything about "lightning network transactions".) > If we all wants to store every transaction in the way the parent of my previous comment alluded to (increase block size), each of us will need our own mini server farm i.e. exponential storage growth. The BTC blockchain is currently 250 GB. If blocks had been 10 times bigger, the blockchain would still be less than 3 TB, and blocks would almost never be full, which would reduce transaction fees and help to onboard more users. I don't think that storing 3 TB of data requires a server farm.
    - gl00pp 7y ago
      So 10 times (the current) 7 transactions per second = 70tps. And it needs 3TB?? Cmon, that's not lot of gain for a lot of loss of control by the average.
    - RustyRussell 7y ago
      Except SPV as Satoshi described doesn't work, so the trade-off becomes "can users simply trust miners" to which the answer from experience is a resounding "no".
      - lawn 7y ago
        For context, this is one of the main devs of the lightning network, who's furthering the propaganda that "miners cannot be trusted". Which is a pretty dumb thing to say, since it's the core security assumption for Bitcoin to work at all.
    - hnews_account_1 7y ago
hanniabu 7y ago
4) An abridged chain. I wish I could find the link for this or remember what it was called, but there's a lot of research towards making a compressed chain that's still verifiable and would be small enough to have on your phone. I believe their thesis stated they should be able to get it down to 2mb if my memory serves correct.
- trevelyan 7y ago
  I think you're thinking of Wimblemimble and ZK-snarks. They use cryptographic techniques where the signatures need to "add up" to what they should in order to be valid -- demonstrating that no new tokens have been added in the course of the new block. Quite cool approaches. The problem is that you can't attach data to transactions, so only useful for a subset of applications, those unlikely to create much bloat in the first place.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    No neither of those are it, I'm familiar with those. I believe this would still be the same old Bitcoin, but there will clients that use these proofs to run a lightweight full node without relying on external sources or resorting to a lite wallet model.
    - trevelyan 7y ago
      Sounds interesting -- if you remember the details pls post.
      - somebodythere 7y ago
        https://codaprotocol.com/ https://codaprotocol.com/
        trevelyan 7y ago
        Coda uses ZK-snarks -- not suitable for affixing data to transactions.
trevelyan 7y ago
There is a solution (#3). Best known is to have the consensus layer prune data periodically, but check to see if the UTXO getting pruned are still spendable and charge fees for rebroadcasting them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agppUdX9YvI&feature=youtu.be&t=104 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agppUdX9YvI&feature=youtu.be... An actual market-powered mechanism for data-pruning. As the price of new transactions rise, the amount paid by old (rebroadcast) transactions rise more. Network hits equilibrium where data in == data out.
lawn 7y ago
No, the idea is to not force everyone to have a complete copy of the blockchain. This is already the case as most use light wallets or SPV wallets. "Decentralization" is a means to an end. Not everyone have to run a full node, as long as there's enough. It's amusing that LN is touted as a solution, since decentralized routing is an unsolved problem, meaning that LN will be more centralized than what it's supposed to solve.

dane-pgp 7y ago

I'm not sure what you mean by "assume storage space will expand exponentially", since there is only a limited number of potential active crypto-currency users, making a small number of daily transactions (ignoring things like High Frequency Trading), recorded in a blockchain that grows linearly over time. Would you say that the credit card network, or PayPal, has exponentially increasing storage requirements? It's possible for Bitcoin (for example) to be decentralised and useful to the world and only require linearly increasing storage space. Fortunately it seems that storage technology will continue to scale linearly over the coming years too: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15064/seagate-roadmap.png https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15064/seagate-roadmap.png

hnews_account_1 7y ago
I should've phrased that better. What I meant was to assume consumer affordable storage space will increase in size exponentially i.e. if we pay $0.01 / GB today, we should be paying fractions of that fraction in a year (because obviously "exponential" is loose term here). > (ignoring things like High Frequency Trading) HFT is not a blockchain transaction. They are off blockchain transactions entirely because they trade money between bitcoin / other cryptos and dollars. > there is only a limited number of potential active crypto-currency users My entire point is that this limits them from growing. If the blockchain is kept from exploding, it helps to onboard more users. > Would you say that the credit card network, or PayPal, has exponentially increasing storage requirements? Indeed not. But their user base is now standardised. So they have a predictable number of transactions every second. However, their storage requirements are still obviously industrial grade server farms. The point of bitcoin is that everyone should have a copy of every transaction (excluding lightning network transactions). You see the connection? Not all of us can have our own server farms. If we all wants to store every transaction in the way the parent of my previous comment alluded to (increase block size), each of us will need our own mini server farm i.e. exponential storage growth. > It's possible for Bitcoin (for example) to be decentralised and useful to the world and only require linearly increasing storage space. Yes. It'll level off at some point. But we are far, faaar away from that point. So it'll take quite a while before it levels off.
- dane-pgp 7y ago
  > The point of bitcoin is that everyone should have a copy of every transaction (excluding lightning network transactions). Is that the point of bitcoin? Satoshi said: > Long before the network gets anywhere near as large as that, it would be safe for users to use Simplified Payment Verification (section 8) to check for double spending, which only requires having the chain of block headers, or about 12KB per day. Only people trying to create new coins would need to run network nodes. https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/ https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/ (He also didn't say anything about "lightning network transactions".) > If we all wants to store every transaction in the way the parent of my previous comment alluded to (increase block size), each of us will need our own mini server farm i.e. exponential storage growth. The BTC blockchain is currently 250 GB. If blocks had been 10 times bigger, the blockchain would still be less than 3 TB, and blocks would almost never be full, which would reduce transaction fees and help to onboard more users. I don't think that storing 3 TB of data requires a server farm.
  - gl00pp 7y ago
    So 10 times (the current) 7 transactions per second = 70tps. And it needs 3TB?? Cmon, that's not lot of gain for a lot of loss of control by the average.
  - RustyRussell 7y ago
    Except SPV as Satoshi described doesn't work, so the trade-off becomes "can users simply trust miners" to which the answer from experience is a resounding "no".
    - lawn 7y ago
      For context, this is one of the main devs of the lightning network, who's furthering the propaganda that "miners cannot be trusted". Which is a pretty dumb thing to say, since it's the core security assumption for Bitcoin to work at all.
  - hnews_account_1 7y ago

hanniabu 7y ago

4) An abridged chain. I wish I could find the link for this or remember what it was called, but there's a lot of research towards making a compressed chain that's still verifiable and would be small enough to have on your phone. I believe their thesis stated they should be able to get it down to 2mb if my memory serves correct.

trevelyan 7y ago
I think you're thinking of Wimblemimble and ZK-snarks. They use cryptographic techniques where the signatures need to "add up" to what they should in order to be valid -- demonstrating that no new tokens have been added in the course of the new block. Quite cool approaches. The problem is that you can't attach data to transactions, so only useful for a subset of applications, those unlikely to create much bloat in the first place.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  No neither of those are it, I'm familiar with those. I believe this would still be the same old Bitcoin, but there will clients that use these proofs to run a lightweight full node without relying on external sources or resorting to a lite wallet model.
  - trevelyan 7y ago
    Sounds interesting -- if you remember the details pls post.
    - somebodythere 7y ago
      https://codaprotocol.com/ https://codaprotocol.com/
      - trevelyan 7y ago
        Coda uses ZK-snarks -- not suitable for affixing data to transactions.

trevelyan 7y ago

There is a solution (#3). Best known is to have the consensus layer prune data periodically, but check to see if the UTXO getting pruned are still spendable and charge fees for rebroadcasting them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agppUdX9YvI&feature=youtu.be&t=104 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agppUdX9YvI&feature=youtu.be... An actual market-powered mechanism for data-pruning. As the price of new transactions rise, the amount paid by old (rebroadcast) transactions rise more. Network hits equilibrium where data in == data out.

lawn 7y ago

No, the idea is to not force everyone to have a complete copy of the blockchain. This is already the case as most use light wallets or SPV wallets. "Decentralization" is a means to an end. Not everyone have to run a full node, as long as there's enough. It's amusing that LN is touted as a solution, since decentralized routing is an unsolved problem, meaning that LN will be more centralized than what it's supposed to solve.