Block size increase oppositionists: please clearly define what you need done to increase block size to a static 8MB, and help do it
6 messages, 30 Jun 2015. Started by Michael Naber.
Michael Naber (2), Richard Moore, Venzen Khaosan, Peter Todd, Bryan Cheng
As you know I'm trying to lobby for a block size increase to a static 8MB.
I'm happy to try to get the testing done that people want done for this, but I think the real crux of this issue is that we need to get consensus that we intend to continually push the block size upward as bounded only by technology.
Imagine an engineer (Gavin) at Boeing (Bitcoin Core) said he was going to build an airplane (block) that was going to move 8x as many people (transactions) as today’s planes (blocks), all while costing about the same amount to operate. Imagine he then went on to tell you that he expects to double the plane’s (block's) capacity every two years!
Without full planes (blocks), will the airlines (miners) go out of business, since planes (blocks) will never be full and the cost to add people (transactions) to a plane (block) will approach zero? Probably not. Airlines (miners) still have to pay for pilots, security screening staff, fuel, etc (engineers, hash rate, electricity, etc) so even if their airplanes (blocks) can hold limitless people (transactions), they would still have to charge sufficient fees to stay in business.
What tests do you need done to move to 8MB? Pitch in and help get those tests done; agree that we'll run more tests next year or the year after when technology might allow for 16 MB blocks. Do you really want to be the guy holding back bigger planes? Do you really want to artificially constrain block size below what technology allows?
In the face of such strong market demand for increased capacity in globally aware global consensus, do you really think you can prevent supply from meeting demand when the technology exists to deliver it? Do you really want to force a fork because you and others won't agree to a simple raise to a static 8MB?
Do what's best for Bitcoin and define what needs to get done to agree to a simple block size increase to a static 8MB.
I’m not planning to take a firm stance against or for, but one problem with your analogy is that airplanes [currently] are not elastic (until we get TARDIS technology, or semi-TARDIS-like technology); they take up space and resources proportional to their capacity.
It is not the block size that is increasing, it is the *maximum* block size… So, it’s more like saying the *maximum* airplane size is increasing, which I think may be somewhat true (although, I agree, probably not exponentially). It would be more like an airplane whose capacity was doubling every two years, but would shrink when that extra capacity was not needed and only consume the maintenance, fuel, et cetera needed for its current size.
My semi-firm-ish stance is that kicking the can down the road with a static increase is less better. We can always soft-fork the limit down if the *actual* block size is growing too fast. When (and/or if) we need to. I also think 8MB is a rather large jump, for either static or dynamic.
*shrug*
RicMoo
Quoted text (19 lines)
> On Jun 30, 2015, at 11:34 AM, Michael Naber <mickeybob@gmail•com> wrote: > > As you know I'm trying to lobby for a block size increase to a static 8MB. > > I'm happy to try to get the testing done that people want done for this, but I think the real crux of this issue is that we need to get consensus that we intend to continually push the block size upward as bounded only by technology. > > Imagine an engineer (Gavin) at Boeing (Bitcoin Core) said he was going to build an airplane (block) that was going to move 8x as many people (transactions) as today’s planes (blocks), all while costing about the same amount to operate. Imagine he then went on to tell you that he expects to double the plane’s (block's) capacity every two years! > > Without full planes (blocks), will the airlines (miners) go out of business, since planes (blocks) will never be full and the cost to add people (transactions) to a plane (block) will approach zero? Probably not. Airlines (miners) still have to pay for pilots, security screening staff, fuel, etc (engineers, hash rate, electricity, etc) so even if their airplanes (blocks) can hold limitless people (transactions), they would still have to charge sufficient fees to stay in business. > > What tests do you need done to move to 8MB? Pitch in and help get those tests done; agree that we'll run more tests next year or the year after when technology might allow for 16 MB blocks. Do you really want to be the guy holding back bigger planes? Do you really want to artificially constrain block size below what technology allows? > > In the face of such strong market demand for increased capacity in globally aware global consensus, do you really think you can prevent supply from meeting demand when the technology exists to deliver it? Do you really want to force a fork because you and others won't agree to a simple raise to a static 8MB? > > Do what's best for Bitcoin and define what needs to get done to agree to a simple block size increase to a static 8MB. > _______________________________________________ > bitcoin-dev mailing list > bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
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Richard Moore ~ Founder Genetic Mistakes Software inc. phone: (778) 882-6125 email: ricmoo@geneticmistakes•com <mailto:ricmoo@geneticmistakes.com> www: http://GeneticMistakes.com <http://geneticmistakes.com/>
Michael, I snipped some of your comparison example to comment. I agree with your sentiment to lobby for testing the change and your offer to provide resources, yet it presents some (surmountable) challenges:
On 06/30/2015 10:34 PM, Michael Naber wrote:
Quoted text (7 lines)
> As you know I'm trying to lobby for a block size increase to a > static 8MB. > > I'm happy to try to get the testing done that people want done for > this, but I think the real crux of this issue is that we need to > get consensus that we intend to continually push the block size > upward as bounded only by technology.
Peter Todd, on 23/06/15, proposed a combined back-test and ongoing forward test as follows:
"... the creation (via reorg) of a realistic full-load blockchain on testnet to fully test the real-world behavior of the entire infrastructure ecosystem, including questions like the scalability of block explorers, SPV wallets, feasibility of initial syncronization, scalability of the UTXO set, etc. While this is of course inconvenient - - 2 years of 8MB blocks is 840GB worth of data..."
So, with a working dataset of that size, jumping to 8MB is excluding a lot of participants and contributors to the testing - someone like myself for example.
Quoted text (2 lines)
> Do what's best for Bitcoin and define what needs to get done to > agree to a simple block size increase to a static 8MB.
And this then leads back to the core issue: if an 8MB blocksize excludes many on this list from testnet, then the proposed 8MB blocks will exclude a lot of mainnet participants (miners) and degrade the quality of diversity and decentralization.
How about testing at double the capacity: 2MB?
On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 11:15:31PM +0700, Venzen Khaosan wrote:
Quoted text (9 lines)
> > Do what's best for Bitcoin and define what needs to get done to > > agree to a simple block size increase to a static 8MB. > > And this then leads back to the core issue: if an 8MB blocksize > excludes many on this list from testnet, then the proposed 8MB blocks > will exclude a lot of mainnet participants (miners) and degrade the > quality of diversity and decentralization. > > How about testing at double the capacity: 2MB?
Which of course raises another issue: if that was the plan, then all you can do is double capacity, with no clear way to scaling beyond that. Why bother?
Re: Why bother doubling capacity? So that we could have 2x more network participants of course.
Re: No clear way to scaling beyond that: Computers are getting more capable aren't they? We'll increase capacity along with hardware.
It's a good thing to scale the network if technology permits it. How can you argue with that?
On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 12:25 PM, Peter Todd <pete@petertodd•org> wrote:
Quoted text (19 lines)
> On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 11:15:31PM +0700, Venzen Khaosan wrote: > > > Do what's best for Bitcoin and define what needs to get done to > > > agree to a simple block size increase to a static 8MB. > > > > And this then leads back to the core issue: if an 8MB blocksize > > excludes many on this list from testnet, then the proposed 8MB blocks > > will exclude a lot of mainnet participants (miners) and degrade the > > quality of diversity and decentralization. > > > > How about testing at double the capacity: 2MB? > > Which of course raises another issue: if that was the plan, then all you > can do is double capacity, with no clear way to scaling beyond that. > Why bother? > > -- > 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org > 00000000000000001599522de3e8ed28f0189ddccfa1d6db5eb380cacffc79d7 >
One thing that seems to have been forgotten is that the 1MB block size does not represent any particular rigorous design choice; it is purely arbitrary.
It does not represent any type of technical sweet-spot; it neither falls under any reasonable MTU to prevent TCP fragmentation, nor does it guarantee in any unique way ease of transmission or lower latency. Chinese mining pool operators, noted as one of the more constrained stakeholders in this decision, have indicated that 8MB is a reasonable compromise in their situation. Unless individuals with specific, concrete use cases come forward with exactly how they will be marginalized by blocks in the 1-8MB range, we should consider 8MB the minimum applicable size for technical objections to raising the block size from a network propagation point of view.
It also does not represent any kind of economic sweet spot. If we accept the arguments on the mailing list that economic incentives for the creation of the fee market depend entirely on a single variable, the scarcity of space for transactions in a block, we should be talking about _decreasing_ the block size. In reality, this is clearly laughable. The real economic analysis would consist of a balance between the space for transactions in a block, the number of transactions being attempted at any given time, and the block subsidy, among many other factors. Viewing it in this light, the chance that 1MB by some divine miracle is the perfect balance of those economic considerations becomes exceedingly small.
(Personally, I believe that increasing the block size has a greater chance of creating a fee market after coinbase subsidies decline, as having competition for space in a block depends not only on the number of transactions that fit in the block, but also the number of people attempting to spend; if success rates fall dramatically, significantly fewer people will attempt to transact bitcoin. However, this is a discussion for another post).
If we stop considering 1MB to be some magic number, perhaps we can enter into a real discussion about finding what the right sweet spot is. We very well may decide that 1MB is _too big_; what should not be acceptable is conflating pressures to decrease the block size with reasons for inaction altogether. The end game of this debate should be to decide the new block size that balances, within reason, the various pressures in every direction.
On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 9:35 AM, Michael Naber <mickeybob@gmail•com> wrote:
Quoted text (39 lines)
> Re: Why bother doubling capacity? So that we could have 2x more network > participants of course. > > Re: No clear way to scaling beyond that: Computers are getting more > capable aren't they? We'll increase capacity along with hardware. > > It's a good thing to scale the network if technology permits it. How can > you argue with that? > > > On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 12:25 PM, Peter Todd <pete@petertodd•org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 11:15:31PM +0700, Venzen Khaosan wrote: >> > > Do what's best for Bitcoin and define what needs to get done to >> > > agree to a simple block size increase to a static 8MB. >> > >> > And this then leads back to the core issue: if an 8MB blocksize >> > excludes many on this list from testnet, then the proposed 8MB blocks >> > will exclude a lot of mainnet participants (miners) and degrade the >> > quality of diversity and decentralization. >> > >> > How about testing at double the capacity: 2MB? >> >> Which of course raises another issue: if that was the plan, then all you >> can do is double capacity, with no clear way to scaling beyond that. >> Why bother? >> >> -- >> 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org >> 00000000000000001599522de3e8ed28f0189ddccfa1d6db5eb380cacffc79d7 >> > > > _______________________________________________ > bitcoin-dev mailing list > bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev > >