4 ms·

Because more people are using it now but the protocol itself isn't actually suited for this level of scale; IMO it's doomed.

viraptor 3y ago
How does that work? I would expect more nodes = more capacity for answering lookups / spreading the DHT. Why is the result the opposite? If I start a full node it's definitely not overwhelmed with traffic.
- dboreham 3y ago
  Nodes end up in unconnected islands of content knowledge. Whatever node you pick to query has a low probability of knowing about some content posted on some other random node. The workaround is to force the p2p topology to make a reachable subset of nodes that you use for both posting and querying, but that's not too decentralized because someone has to coordinate the topology override scheme.
Thorrez 3y ago
Sounds like what happened to bitcoin.
- TimeBearingDown 3y ago
  Bitcoin was co-opted by a censorious minority - Theymos and Blockstream - who have maintained an artificially low block size, ostensibly in order to keep a high number of non-mining but full-history nodes. Bitcoin’s competitors such as Ethereum and Monero did not allow a software or discussion forum monoculture and instead have scaling block sizes, and still hard fork to add new scaling features (https://ethresear.ch https://ethresear.ch).
  - mort96 3y ago
    Block size puts a limit on the rate of transactions, but increasing the block size wouldn't help the time it takes to spin up new nodes. In fact, increasing the block size would make spinning up new nodes significantly less feasible, since the chain would grow at a faster rate.
    - TimeBearingDown 3y ago
      Having a large number of independent non-mining full-history nodes is good, but it’s ultimately far less important than the distribution of mining (voting) nodes, and it’s one of many factors that must be considered while working to increase throughput, which is an absolute imperative. Under 10 tx/sec is glacial, it makes Bitcoin useless for the people with the least access to financial services, and it seems starkly in opposition to Satoshi’s written comments about scaling when adding the 1MB block size. I do think Bitcoin should be considered a failure if it becomes purely an exercise in hoarding. I will say!I’ve been too happy with Ethereum and Monero to test Lightning, but I should. I had misgivings with its interface and availability requirements while reading of it in the past years.
j_maffe 3y ago
Do you have any sources where I can read up on this? I've also heard of this complaint and I'm interested in diving into it for my thesis. Do you know what algorithms are suitable to make IPFS scalable?

viraptor 3y ago

How does that work? I would expect more nodes = more capacity for answering lookups / spreading the DHT. Why is the result the opposite? If I start a full node it's definitely not overwhelmed with traffic.

dboreham 3y ago
Nodes end up in unconnected islands of content knowledge. Whatever node you pick to query has a low probability of knowing about some content posted on some other random node. The workaround is to force the p2p topology to make a reachable subset of nodes that you use for both posting and querying, but that's not too decentralized because someone has to coordinate the topology override scheme.

Thorrez 3y ago

Sounds like what happened to bitcoin.

TimeBearingDown 3y ago
Bitcoin was co-opted by a censorious minority - Theymos and Blockstream - who have maintained an artificially low block size, ostensibly in order to keep a high number of non-mining but full-history nodes. Bitcoin’s competitors such as Ethereum and Monero did not allow a software or discussion forum monoculture and instead have scaling block sizes, and still hard fork to add new scaling features (https://ethresear.ch https://ethresear.ch).
- mort96 3y ago
  Block size puts a limit on the rate of transactions, but increasing the block size wouldn't help the time it takes to spin up new nodes. In fact, increasing the block size would make spinning up new nodes significantly less feasible, since the chain would grow at a faster rate.
  - TimeBearingDown 3y ago
    Having a large number of independent non-mining full-history nodes is good, but it’s ultimately far less important than the distribution of mining (voting) nodes, and it’s one of many factors that must be considered while working to increase throughput, which is an absolute imperative. Under 10 tx/sec is glacial, it makes Bitcoin useless for the people with the least access to financial services, and it seems starkly in opposition to Satoshi’s written comments about scaling when adding the 1MB block size. I do think Bitcoin should be considered a failure if it becomes purely an exercise in hoarding. I will say!I’ve been too happy with Ethereum and Monero to test Lightning, but I should. I had misgivings with its interface and availability requirements while reading of it in the past years.

j_maffe 3y ago

Do you have any sources where I can read up on this? I've also heard of this complaint and I'm interested in diving into it for my thesis. Do you know what algorithms are suitable to make IPFS scalable?