3 ms·

I'm not following this. Can someone dumb it down a bit?

runn1ng 14y ago
There are too many bitcoin transactions, so the blocks are too big. The miners have to be run with different settings to account for that. I don't know what bitcoin proponents think will happen in the bitcoin future when everyone will be payibg with it; the size of the block will quickly get to megabytes. Yeah, bitcoin doesn't scale well.
- tocomment 14y ago
  But Moores law
  - simonh 14y ago
    Since the issue is disk storage, not transistor count, that should be Kryder's Law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kryder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kryder Of course if bitcoin transaction volumes rise faster than that, there's a problem. Which, uh oh, they are. By a lot! http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions http://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size http://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size
- Karunamon 14y ago
  >bitcoin doesn't scale well Meanwhile, average and available bandwidth and disk space goes up. By the time the block chain breaks into the terabytes range, storage and network technology will have advanced to the point where it's not a problem anymore.
  - runn1ng 14y ago
    But what if Bitcoin - and therefore blocks and blockchain - will rise more quickly than the technology?
    - jere 14y ago
      Yea. Everyone screaming Moore's law (a historical observation that isn't guaranteed to continue) must be also saying that the Bitcoin economy won't double from its current size every couple years.
  - tocomment 14y ago
    Does every new user have to download the entire blockchain? That's a point I'm not really clear on.
    - Karunamon 14y ago
      When you first start up your client, yes. From then on it's just kept in sync with the network. It was around a gigabyte back in January.
    - Rovanion 14y ago
      If you are hosting your own wallet and not using an online solution yes.
      - joezydeco 14y ago
        Do you know of an online wallet that seems to be reputable? I'm looking at Coinbase at the moment.
        Rovanion 14y ago
        Blockchain.info is quite popular. That's really all I know.
    - Tuna-Fish 14y ago
      If you run a full client, yes. It is perfectly possible to not do this, but doing so requires that you trust someone (the one running the client for you).
    - yk 14y ago
      Currently yes ( with the official client). But this is not a requirement of the system. Theoretically you can announce transactions without looking at the block chain, but then you do not know how much BTCs are in your account. There is another optimization, the block chain consists of an Merkle tree, such that you can verify the block chain without storing all the previous blocks. In this case you still need to download all blocks, but you only need to store ~ 80 Bytes per block. [1] [1] http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    Someone on Reddit recently dug up this email from the early days of bitcoin development, from Satoshi Nakamoto (the founder of bitcoin). He anticipated this problem and foresaw that eventually only specialized hardware would run full nodes, and everyone else would run on a highly simplified system requiring a lot less bandwidth/storage. http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09964.html http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg099...
    - richardwhiuk 14y ago
      Those people with high power nodes will be known as banks - see Dan Kaminsky's thoughts: http://www.slideshare.net/dakami/bitcoin-8776098 http://www.slideshare.net/dakami/bitcoin-8776098
      - waterlesscloud 14y ago
        "Bank" carries a lot of unfortunate connotations with it that won't necessarily apply to the supernodes. It would be better to use a different term for those. What's likely to closely resemble banks in the future are bitcoin clearing houses, where transactions just move around internally. These will be supernodes themselves, but not all supernodes need to be this kind of clearing house.
  - sp332 14y ago
    There is a hard limit on the size of the block. We are already 25% of the way there. This is going to become a problem in another couple of years, because the protocol cannot handle the rate of transactions.
- joezydeco 14y ago
  I just tried to fire up a new client last night and the whole thing just ground to a halt with about 18,000 blocks left to process. Is this why?

There are too many bitcoin transactions, so the blocks are too big. The miners have to be run with different settings to account for that. I don't know what bitcoin proponents think will happen in the bitcoin future when everyone will be payibg with it; the size of the block will quickly get to megabytes. Yeah, bitcoin doesn't scale well.

tocomment 14y ago
But Moores law
- simonh 14y ago
  Since the issue is disk storage, not transistor count, that should be Kryder's Law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kryder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kryder Of course if bitcoin transaction volumes rise faster than that, there's a problem. Which, uh oh, they are. By a lot! http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions http://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size http://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size
Karunamon 14y ago
>bitcoin doesn't scale well Meanwhile, average and available bandwidth and disk space goes up. By the time the block chain breaks into the terabytes range, storage and network technology will have advanced to the point where it's not a problem anymore.
- runn1ng 14y ago
  But what if Bitcoin - and therefore blocks and blockchain - will rise more quickly than the technology?
  - jere 14y ago
    Yea. Everyone screaming Moore's law (a historical observation that isn't guaranteed to continue) must be also saying that the Bitcoin economy won't double from its current size every couple years.
- tocomment 14y ago
  Does every new user have to download the entire blockchain? That's a point I'm not really clear on.
  - Karunamon 14y ago
    When you first start up your client, yes. From then on it's just kept in sync with the network. It was around a gigabyte back in January.
  - Rovanion 14y ago
    If you are hosting your own wallet and not using an online solution yes.
    - joezydeco 14y ago
      Do you know of an online wallet that seems to be reputable? I'm looking at Coinbase at the moment.
      - Rovanion 14y ago
        Blockchain.info is quite popular. That's really all I know.
  - Tuna-Fish 14y ago
    If you run a full client, yes. It is perfectly possible to not do this, but doing so requires that you trust someone (the one running the client for you).
  - yk 14y ago
    Currently yes ( with the official client). But this is not a requirement of the system. Theoretically you can announce transactions without looking at the block chain, but then you do not know how much BTCs are in your account. There is another optimization, the block chain consists of an Merkle tree, such that you can verify the block chain without storing all the previous blocks. In this case you still need to download all blocks, but you only need to store ~ 80 Bytes per block. [1] [1] http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Someone on Reddit recently dug up this email from the early days of bitcoin development, from Satoshi Nakamoto (the founder of bitcoin). He anticipated this problem and foresaw that eventually only specialized hardware would run full nodes, and everyone else would run on a highly simplified system requiring a lot less bandwidth/storage. http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09964.html http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg099...
  - richardwhiuk 14y ago
    Those people with high power nodes will be known as banks - see Dan Kaminsky's thoughts: http://www.slideshare.net/dakami/bitcoin-8776098 http://www.slideshare.net/dakami/bitcoin-8776098
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      "Bank" carries a lot of unfortunate connotations with it that won't necessarily apply to the supernodes. It would be better to use a different term for those. What's likely to closely resemble banks in the future are bitcoin clearing houses, where transactions just move around internally. These will be supernodes themselves, but not all supernodes need to be this kind of clearing house.
- sp332 14y ago
  There is a hard limit on the size of the block. We are already 25% of the way there. This is going to become a problem in another couple of years, because the protocol cannot handle the rate of transactions.
joezydeco 14y ago
I just tried to fire up a new client last night and the whole thing just ground to a halt with about 18,000 blocks left to process. Is this why?