5 ms·

Bitcoin faces a crossroads, needs an effective decision-making process

52 points by notsony 11y ago

grhmc 11y ago
Let's just use the block-chain for decision making! edit: I was probably trolling.
- socrates1024 11y ago
  Yes! See suggestion #2 in the article. The block-chain is a great tool for decision making, since it makes it possible to get a transparent, permanent, public log of all the comments and opinions that go into the decision. So far, in-blockchain voting has been used for soft-forks, but it could be used more frequently and less urgently too.
  - kstop 11y ago
    /facepalm
drcode 11y ago
I would argue though that the recently controversy is an illustration of "the arguments are so contentious because the stakes are so small". In all of the recent debates there have been smart people arguing that "leaving things as is" is an acceptable course of action. In the past, when there was an objectively clear problem, the community always quickly rallied around a fix.
- TylerE 11y ago
  How is being unable to scale past an essentially irrelevant (globally) # of transactions "small stakes"?
  - drcode 11y ago
    Whether the block size is 1MB or 10MB in May of 2015 is "small stakes"... in May of 2018 (or whatever) the stakes might be larger. Also, there's alternative approaches (payment channels, lightning networks, etc) for handling smaller transactions that may prove viable in the near future. (To repeat: I'm not saying I'm against larger blocks, only that there's still smart people defending both sides of the argument at the moment, and that's why a stalemate has formed.)
xiphias 11y ago
The blocksize debate asks the wrong question: not whether the blocksize should be increased, but more like what are the steps to do to make sure that the blocksize increase is as safe as possible: decreasing the header sizes, improving DOS attacks, synchronization between nodes are more important then the 15-liner that just increases the maximum block size.
- PierreRochard 11y ago
  Those are the technical questions. The big picture economic question is, how does bitcoin mining transition from block reward revenue to transaction fee revenue ( see http://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/#selection-185.5-185.396 http://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/#selection-185.5-185.39... ). Discussion with Gavin on this subject here: http://bitstein.org/blog/pierre-rochard-and-gavin-andresen-discuss-the-block-size-limit/ http://bitstein.org/blog/pierre-rochard-and-gavin-andresen-d...
  - nosuchthing 11y ago
    The greater issue of BTC is the odds between hording speculators who "believe" the "rarity" of Bitcoin will increase the market price. Currency should be predictably stable as a medium to facilitate exchange of other goods and services. Currency should also be encouraged to recirculate back into the economy, rather than sit around doing nothing. There's also a huge issue of people dedicating effort to form price manipulator syndicates and HFT bots within the cryptocoin communities [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7126153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7126153
wmf 11y ago
I thought the spirit of Bitcoin is that it is governed only by algorithms. If Bitcoin needs massive proof of work and human governance, that reduces its value significantly IMO.
- sowbug 11y ago
  Humans still write the algorithms and deploy the binaries.
- socrates1024 11y ago
  Well, that has never been the case. The algorithm of the network is defined by the most widely used implementations, which so far has continued to be Bitcoin Core. Bitcoin Core is maintained by a group of humans, who use some form of decision making process (whether it be implicit or explicit). The more effective that decision making process is, the more reliable and durable the system will be.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- nemild 11y ago
  Doesn't every open source project have governance in some form - be it implicit or explicit? In the extreme case where code is written that never needs to be updated (which is hard given the changes needed for scalability and security, never mind additional functionality) - then maybe you might not need a governance structure. The post highlights is that governance always exists - the question is how formal or informal it is, and what that means about the decision making process and its performance (e.g., speed of decisions, whether it reflects key stakeholders).
Animats 11y ago
The free market will solve the problem. If and when the blockchain runs out of capacity, only the transactions with higher transaction fees get through. Transaction fees will rise accordingly, and small transactions will become uneconomic. Bitcoin transaction volume in dollars is flat.[1] It hasn't grown in the last year; it's declined slightly. [1] https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-...

52 points by notsony 11y ago

grhmc 11y ago

Let's just use the block-chain for decision making! edit: I was probably trolling.

socrates1024 11y ago
Yes! See suggestion #2 in the article. The block-chain is a great tool for decision making, since it makes it possible to get a transparent, permanent, public log of all the comments and opinions that go into the decision. So far, in-blockchain voting has been used for soft-forks, but it could be used more frequently and less urgently too.
- kstop 11y ago
  /facepalm

drcode 11y ago

I would argue though that the recently controversy is an illustration of "the arguments are so contentious because the stakes are so small". In all of the recent debates there have been smart people arguing that "leaving things as is" is an acceptable course of action. In the past, when there was an objectively clear problem, the community always quickly rallied around a fix.

TylerE 11y ago
How is being unable to scale past an essentially irrelevant (globally) # of transactions "small stakes"?
- drcode 11y ago
  Whether the block size is 1MB or 10MB in May of 2015 is "small stakes"... in May of 2018 (or whatever) the stakes might be larger. Also, there's alternative approaches (payment channels, lightning networks, etc) for handling smaller transactions that may prove viable in the near future. (To repeat: I'm not saying I'm against larger blocks, only that there's still smart people defending both sides of the argument at the moment, and that's why a stalemate has formed.)

xiphias 11y ago

The blocksize debate asks the wrong question: not whether the blocksize should be increased, but more like what are the steps to do to make sure that the blocksize increase is as safe as possible: decreasing the header sizes, improving DOS attacks, synchronization between nodes are more important then the 15-liner that just increases the maximum block size.

PierreRochard 11y ago
Those are the technical questions. The big picture economic question is, how does bitcoin mining transition from block reward revenue to transaction fee revenue ( see http://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/#selection-185.5-185.396 http://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/#selection-185.5-185.39... ). Discussion with Gavin on this subject here: http://bitstein.org/blog/pierre-rochard-and-gavin-andresen-discuss-the-block-size-limit/ http://bitstein.org/blog/pierre-rochard-and-gavin-andresen-d...
- nosuchthing 11y ago
  The greater issue of BTC is the odds between hording speculators who "believe" the "rarity" of Bitcoin will increase the market price. Currency should be predictably stable as a medium to facilitate exchange of other goods and services. Currency should also be encouraged to recirculate back into the economy, rather than sit around doing nothing. There's also a huge issue of people dedicating effort to form price manipulator syndicates and HFT bots within the cryptocoin communities [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7126153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7126153

wmf 11y ago

I thought the spirit of Bitcoin is that it is governed only by algorithms. If Bitcoin needs massive proof of work and human governance, that reduces its value significantly IMO.

sowbug 11y ago
Humans still write the algorithms and deploy the binaries.
socrates1024 11y ago
Well, that has never been the case. The algorithm of the network is defined by the most widely used implementations, which so far has continued to be Bitcoin Core. Bitcoin Core is maintained by a group of humans, who use some form of decision making process (whether it be implicit or explicit). The more effective that decision making process is, the more reliable and durable the system will be.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
nemild 11y ago
Doesn't every open source project have governance in some form - be it implicit or explicit? In the extreme case where code is written that never needs to be updated (which is hard given the changes needed for scalability and security, never mind additional functionality) - then maybe you might not need a governance structure. The post highlights is that governance always exists - the question is how formal or informal it is, and what that means about the decision making process and its performance (e.g., speed of decisions, whether it reflects key stakeholders).

Animats 11y ago

The free market will solve the problem. If and when the blockchain runs out of capacity, only the transactions with higher transaction fees get through. Transaction fees will rise accordingly, and small transactions will become uneconomic. Bitcoin transaction volume in dollars is flat.[1] It hasn't grown in the last year; it's declined slightly. [1] https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-...