4 ms·

Bitcoin added 66GB to it’s permanent ledger in the last year. Saturated 16Mb blocks would add a Tb a year. It’s hard to see how that won’t be centralizing after

Bitcoin added 66GB to it’s permanent ledger in the last year. Saturated 16Mb blocks would add a Tb a year. It’s hard to see how that won’t be centralizing after a few years and people need 3TB just to get started. Not to mention the task of syncing and transferring on a less than perfect connection. Yes, storage does get cheaper, but cryptocurrency is outpacing it dramatically. And even with these big blocks, we’d have nowhere near a competitive solution, less than 7% of Visa volume. “Raise the block size again” would only get so far. We need something better. I’m not sure lightning is the answer, but at least it shows such a thing is possible. We don’t need big blocks.

sfjailbird 6y ago
That's fine. Not every home user needs to run a full node. That is a, frankly obvious, misconception that the current maintainers have saddled themselves with. As others have alluded to, Satoshi specifically predicted that bitcoin would be run by large datacenters. Is it "religion" to prefer the vision of the inventor of one of the most brilliant innovations of a century? A vision that has proven itself against all reason and criticism (often coming from the very same people who are now the maintainers). With all due respect to the core developers, they are a bunch of crypto geeks (which is fine), but Satoshi was a genius who also understood economy, psychology and a bunch of other stuff, which is why bitcoin exists and is an incredible success.
- Kathula 6y ago
  When you say that Satoshi predicted that Bitcoin would be run by large datacenters, are you referring to the mining? Or the nodes? Anyways, I'd like to see this actual post you're referencing (look at https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/ https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/). I've read a lot of his posts and never seen this mentioned. It also seems very anti-Bitcoin. I'm not saying that every home user needs to run a full node though.
  - johnyzee 6y ago
    Nodes. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=532.msg6306#msg6306 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=532.msg6306#msg6306 "The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale. That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server. The design supports letting users just be users. The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be. Those few nodes will be big server farms. The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate."
UncleMeat 6y ago
Both choices lead to “centralizing”. With the existing throughput of BTC, were it to be adopted by the entire world, each person would get one transaction per several decades. This means that virtually all transactions must be done off chain through hubs. I think it is important to realize how these huge policy decisions are left in the hands of a few individuals too.
CyberDildonics 6y ago
1.5KB/s That's the current throughput of bitcoin. When the ridiculousness of that is pointed out, why do people start talking about Visa's volume? Bitcoin is unusable for regular transactions. A single transaction costs as much as an -entire hard drive- that can store the current chain multiple times over. After 11 years the chain takes up $6 of hard drive space. The only people that need to sync with the chain are miners, exchanges, online wallets and enthusiasts.

sfjailbird 6y ago

That's fine. Not every home user needs to run a full node. That is a, frankly obvious, misconception that the current maintainers have saddled themselves with. As others have alluded to, Satoshi specifically predicted that bitcoin would be run by large datacenters. Is it "religion" to prefer the vision of the inventor of one of the most brilliant innovations of a century? A vision that has proven itself against all reason and criticism (often coming from the very same people who are now the maintainers). With all due respect to the core developers, they are a bunch of crypto geeks (which is fine), but Satoshi was a genius who also understood economy, psychology and a bunch of other stuff, which is why bitcoin exists and is an incredible success.

Kathula 6y ago
When you say that Satoshi predicted that Bitcoin would be run by large datacenters, are you referring to the mining? Or the nodes? Anyways, I'd like to see this actual post you're referencing (look at https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/ https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/). I've read a lot of his posts and never seen this mentioned. It also seems very anti-Bitcoin. I'm not saying that every home user needs to run a full node though.
- johnyzee 6y ago
  Nodes. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=532.msg6306#msg6306 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=532.msg6306#msg6306 "The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale. That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server. The design supports letting users just be users. The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be. Those few nodes will be big server farms. The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate."

UncleMeat 6y ago

Both choices lead to “centralizing”. With the existing throughput of BTC, were it to be adopted by the entire world, each person would get one transaction per several decades. This means that virtually all transactions must be done off chain through hubs. I think it is important to realize how these huge policy decisions are left in the hands of a few individuals too.

CyberDildonics 6y ago

1.5KB/s That's the current throughput of bitcoin. When the ridiculousness of that is pointed out, why do people start talking about Visa's volume? Bitcoin is unusable for regular transactions. A single transaction costs as much as an -entire hard drive- that can store the current chain multiple times over. After 11 years the chain takes up $6 of hard drive space. The only people that need to sync with the chain are miners, exchanges, online wallets and enthusiasts.