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its a pity bitcoin devs are so opposed to changing the protocol. So much research has been done showing the feasibility of increasing bitcoins throughput. Xthin

by dylkil 5y ago

its a pity bitcoin devs are so opposed to changing the protocol. So much research has been done showing the feasibility of increasing bitcoins throughput. Xthinner for instance is capable of compressing bitcoin blocks by up to 99% using bloom filters [1]. Much of this research was conducted on the bitcoin fork, bitcoin cash, by people ostracized from the bitcoin community for wanting to explore these ideas. [1]https://reddit.com/r/btc/comments/bas60b/by_the_power_of_ctor_xthinner_is_now_working_with/ https://reddit.com/r/btc/comments/bas60b/by_the_power_of_cto...

billytetrud 5y ago
The actual transactions must all still be transmitted, so this "compression" is actually a way to avoid transmitting transaction data that has already been received by the other side. Bitcoin already does this and while maybe xthinner is better (I don't know) its absolutely not a 99X improvement over standard bitcoin. The problem with the bch people was that they were reckless and dishonest, not that they didn't occasionally create interesting things and have good points. It was a community that was problematic, but still contained some people doing good work.
- topranks 5y ago
  It’s core principal; that the 1MB blocks use cap was arbitrary and holding back the network, remains 100% true. The arguments against SPV wallet use in this text don’t ring true for me.
  - grlass 5y ago
    It may be arbitrary, but increasing blocksize to mitigate network congestion is not a good solution, since any cap you set it to will also be arbitrary, and harm decentralisation (block propagation time, node operation costs, etc). And given how valuable it is to have data in a semi-permanent near-immutable distributed ledger, that block space would be filled up pretty quickly, solving nothing. Keeping the limit however has inspired a number of novel innovations to use the space more efficiently, including segwit (effectively increasing blocks to 4MB), and taproot. In short, block size increases are an "easy solution" that don't really solve much.
    - dylkil 5y ago
      >since any cap you set it to will also be arbitrary Unless you done quantitative analysis into the most appropriate blocksize. But that will never happen at this stage.
- dylkil 5y ago
  >problem with the bch people was that they were reckless and dishonest Anything relevant you would like to share to back up this claim?
  - etrabroline 5y ago
    There were opportunists on both sides but the blockstream people argued that purely observational non-mining nodes somehow 'secure' the network despite having no effect and need to be possible to run with a non-broadband connection and less than 100GB of free disk space. Satoshi himself in the Bitcoin whitepaper estimated higher bandwidth and storage requirements for nodes than what the blockstream employed devs said were too high. The point of Wall Street getting involved was to kill Bitcoin as a currency and turn it into a pure speculator's playground. (aka bitcoin as gold)
- uncletammy 5y ago
  https://news.bitcoin.com/xthinner-protocol-tested-on-bch-mainnet-shows-99-block-compression/ https://news.bitcoin.com/xthinner-protocol-tested-on-bch-mai...
scotty79 5y ago
The lower transaction throuput,the higher the fees, the higher the incentive for the miners to process transactions. They probably don't want to mess with that dynamic too harshly.
- wyager 5y ago
  That economic analysis is clearly facile. If it worked, miners would want there to be 1 transaction per block.
  - somjeed 5y ago
    Miners want to maximize transaction fees. So more is better. But there is a massive tradeoff, being every transaction must be stored to verify later.
- dylkil 5y ago
  this was the debate circa 2014/2015. Should the bitcoin network consist of many low fee transactions or few high fee transactions. Right now the incentive for miners to secure the network is produced with the block reward, but when the block reward runs out this incentive will be from fees alone. In order to provide miners with the same revenue as today when the block reward runs out, the average fee per tx will need to be close to $200. If you increase the block size to 100mb and use block compression tech like xthinner to make blocks essentially 1mb (like today), then the average fee needed is only $2.
  - scotty79 5y ago
    Why many low fee transactions were not chosen?
    - dylkil 5y ago
      You'll get many different responses to this question depending on who you ask. If you want to read into further i recommend you read the great scaling debate[1]. Its pretty long but does a fantastic job of summarizing the history. In short the most popular reason for not having a block size increase (to allow many low fee transactions) was that it would increase the cost of running a full node, in turn centralising the network. More transactions would mean nodes would need a bigger hard drive and a better cpu to process the transactions. The small block camp wanted people to be able to run nodes on a raspberry pi. This theory is misguided in my opinion though, they chose to sacrifice cheap transactions to keep node running costs cheap. [1]https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-great-bitcoin-scaling-debate-a-timeline-6108081dbada https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-great-bitcoin-scaling-deba...
rawtxapp 5y ago
There are some very important changes happening in bitcoin (taproot, eltoo, lightning). Devs aren't opposed to protocol changes, they are opposed to ill-thought changes that make it less decentralized and weaker.
- itsdsmurrell 5y ago
  Wrong, they are opposed to changes that will stop them from profiteering off higher layer solutions they provide.
  - rawtxapp 5y ago
    Devs are not profiting from 2nd layers, people who commit capital to these payment channels do! And even then it's tiny amounts.
    - atatatat 5y ago
      MasterCard and Visa take tiny amounts, too. DOGE and PRV (WSBCoin anyone?) don't require these layers.
- hanniabu 5y ago
  Since when does Lightning Network not make it less decentralized? That's news to me
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
itsdsmurrell 5y ago
For anyone who joined late: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/61mxuj/block_size_limit_debate_history_lesson/ https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/61mxuj/block_size_limi...
jlrubin 5y ago
Bitcoin incorporated Compact Blocks which similar improves average case behavior. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0152.mediawiki https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0152.mediawi... Things like thinblocks or compact blocks only help on average. Bitcoin must be robust for worst case.
alfiedotwtf 5y ago
Why not fork? Sure, it may no longer be Bitcoin Core... but legitimate non-backwards compatible forks seem like a good reason to start a new chain
- dylkil 5y ago
  this is exactly what bitcoin cash is

by dylkil 5y ago

billytetrud 5y ago

The actual transactions must all still be transmitted, so this "compression" is actually a way to avoid transmitting transaction data that has already been received by the other side. Bitcoin already does this and while maybe xthinner is better (I don't know) its absolutely not a 99X improvement over standard bitcoin. The problem with the bch people was that they were reckless and dishonest, not that they didn't occasionally create interesting things and have good points. It was a community that was problematic, but still contained some people doing good work.

topranks 5y ago
It’s core principal; that the 1MB blocks use cap was arbitrary and holding back the network, remains 100% true. The arguments against SPV wallet use in this text don’t ring true for me.
- grlass 5y ago
  It may be arbitrary, but increasing blocksize to mitigate network congestion is not a good solution, since any cap you set it to will also be arbitrary, and harm decentralisation (block propagation time, node operation costs, etc). And given how valuable it is to have data in a semi-permanent near-immutable distributed ledger, that block space would be filled up pretty quickly, solving nothing. Keeping the limit however has inspired a number of novel innovations to use the space more efficiently, including segwit (effectively increasing blocks to 4MB), and taproot. In short, block size increases are an "easy solution" that don't really solve much.
  - dylkil 5y ago
    >since any cap you set it to will also be arbitrary Unless you done quantitative analysis into the most appropriate blocksize. But that will never happen at this stage.
dylkil 5y ago
>problem with the bch people was that they were reckless and dishonest Anything relevant you would like to share to back up this claim?
- etrabroline 5y ago
  There were opportunists on both sides but the blockstream people argued that purely observational non-mining nodes somehow 'secure' the network despite having no effect and need to be possible to run with a non-broadband connection and less than 100GB of free disk space. Satoshi himself in the Bitcoin whitepaper estimated higher bandwidth and storage requirements for nodes than what the blockstream employed devs said were too high. The point of Wall Street getting involved was to kill Bitcoin as a currency and turn it into a pure speculator's playground. (aka bitcoin as gold)
uncletammy 5y ago
https://news.bitcoin.com/xthinner-protocol-tested-on-bch-mainnet-shows-99-block-compression/ https://news.bitcoin.com/xthinner-protocol-tested-on-bch-mai...

scotty79 5y ago

The lower transaction throuput,the higher the fees, the higher the incentive for the miners to process transactions. They probably don't want to mess with that dynamic too harshly.

wyager 5y ago
That economic analysis is clearly facile. If it worked, miners would want there to be 1 transaction per block.
- somjeed 5y ago
  Miners want to maximize transaction fees. So more is better. But there is a massive tradeoff, being every transaction must be stored to verify later.
dylkil 5y ago
this was the debate circa 2014/2015. Should the bitcoin network consist of many low fee transactions or few high fee transactions. Right now the incentive for miners to secure the network is produced with the block reward, but when the block reward runs out this incentive will be from fees alone. In order to provide miners with the same revenue as today when the block reward runs out, the average fee per tx will need to be close to $200. If you increase the block size to 100mb and use block compression tech like xthinner to make blocks essentially 1mb (like today), then the average fee needed is only $2.
- scotty79 5y ago
  Why many low fee transactions were not chosen?
  - dylkil 5y ago
    You'll get many different responses to this question depending on who you ask. If you want to read into further i recommend you read the great scaling debate[1]. Its pretty long but does a fantastic job of summarizing the history. In short the most popular reason for not having a block size increase (to allow many low fee transactions) was that it would increase the cost of running a full node, in turn centralising the network. More transactions would mean nodes would need a bigger hard drive and a better cpu to process the transactions. The small block camp wanted people to be able to run nodes on a raspberry pi. This theory is misguided in my opinion though, they chose to sacrifice cheap transactions to keep node running costs cheap. [1]https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-great-bitcoin-scaling-debate-a-timeline-6108081dbada https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-great-bitcoin-scaling-deba...

rawtxapp 5y ago

There are some very important changes happening in bitcoin (taproot, eltoo, lightning). Devs aren't opposed to protocol changes, they are opposed to ill-thought changes that make it less decentralized and weaker.

itsdsmurrell 5y ago
Wrong, they are opposed to changes that will stop them from profiteering off higher layer solutions they provide.
- rawtxapp 5y ago
  Devs are not profiting from 2nd layers, people who commit capital to these payment channels do! And even then it's tiny amounts.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    MasterCard and Visa take tiny amounts, too. DOGE and PRV (WSBCoin anyone?) don't require these layers.
hanniabu 5y ago
Since when does Lightning Network not make it less decentralized? That's news to me
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

itsdsmurrell 5y ago

For anyone who joined late: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/61mxuj/block_size_limit_debate_history_lesson/ https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/61mxuj/block_size_limi...

jlrubin 5y ago

Bitcoin incorporated Compact Blocks which similar improves average case behavior. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0152.mediawiki https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0152.mediawi... Things like thinblocks or compact blocks only help on average. Bitcoin must be robust for worst case.

alfiedotwtf 5y ago

Why not fork? Sure, it may no longer be Bitcoin Core... but legitimate non-backwards compatible forks seem like a good reason to start a new chain

dylkil 5y ago
this is exactly what bitcoin cash is