BIP proposal - Max block size

Hi devs. I was discussing the BIP proposals concerning max block size yesterday in the #bitcoin channel. I believe that BIP101 fully utilized will outperform consumer hardware soon or later and thereby centralize Bitcoin. I would therefore like to do a different proposal:

Motivations: * BIP101 propose a doubling of the block max size every second year. This is very fast and may make the blockchain to grow faster than consumer hardware can cope with. * BIP102 is only a one-time solution, thus a new discussion of the next block max size will need to arise soon after it has been implemented. * BIP100 is an interesting solution in that the miners vote on the block max size. Althoigh it has several cons: 1) The block max size can never extend 32 MiB, even if we are so far in the future that it is need for larger blocks. 2) The block max size could reach a size of 32 MiB in a rather fast manner if pools vote for it, even though consumer hardware today isn't really ready for the growth it implicates. 3) Block max size can be pushed backwards, which will make TX fees higher, cause a lot of orphaned low-fee TXes. It could make some smaller mining pools dependant on lots of TXes with fees unprofitable. It is a serious flaw which could damage the trust of the network. * We does not for sure know how the evolution will proceed and if there will be storage for the larger block chain in the future. * There is a benefit of having a limit on the amount of transactions that will be processed in that the fees will rise. * Also there is a large problem if the fees rise too high because it will prevent mainstream users from using the network. There will also be a lot of orphan TXes which will cause uncertainity and fear of losses among users that don't know how bitcoin works. * Pruning is a problem if the blockchain grows too fast because some, although a few, nodes still must store the complete data -> centralization.

Concepts: There is always a growth in the block max size. Never a decrease. The growth rate desicion should be in the hands of the miners. It's good to have limits on the block max size to keep back spam TXes. Use rules that makes a more smooth and predictable growth.

Rules: 1) Main target growth is 2^(1/2) every second year, or a doubling of the block max size every four years. 2) The growth rate every second year will strictly be limited by the formula 2^2 > growth > linear growth. 3) The target growth could be modified with positive or negative votes, but it will not exceed the limits of 2) in any direction. Miners could also choose to not vote. 4) The linear y=kx+m will be formed from the genesis block date with size 1 MiB (m) through the last retarget block date with current size. 5) Target growth is based on votes from the last 26280 blocks (half a year). 6) Block max size grows at the same time as block difficulty retarget (2016 blocks) with the formula 2^(((1/2)+(1/2*amount positive votes)-(1/2*amount negative votes))/52). If the votes propose a lower growth than the linear, use the linear growth instead. Block size is floored to byte precision. 7) Amount positive/negative votes are calculated as following: number of votes, positive or negative / 26280. 8) When this rule are put in force, the block max size will immidiately be set to 4 MiB.

Notes: * The number 52 came from 52 weeks/year * 2 years / 2 weeks. It measures number of week pairs or difficulty retargets per two years. * When there are no votes, the growth speed is set as main target as in 1). Also blocks mined before the implementation counts as blocks with no votes.

Examples: * After implementation, the block max size will be 4 MiB. * At the first retarget, if no miner has left a vote, or equal number of votes exists for positive and negative side. Then the next block max size is 4096 KiB*2^((1/2)/52)=4123.3905 KiB (or exactly 4 222 351 bytes) * If the block max size is exactly 11 MiB, it has been exactly 10 years and 2 weeks since the genesis block, the next block is a retarget and every vote is negative. Then 2^(((1/2)-(1/2))/52) = 1. It is lower than the linear, then the next block max size will follow the linear derived from: (11 MiB - 1 MiB) / (10.00 years) = 1 = k. Formula for a linear is y=kx+m. m is the genesis block max size in MiB. Then y = 1 * (10+1/52) + 1 = 11.019 [MiB] (or exactly 11 554 500 bytes) * If everyone in the past example continue voting negative for the next four years, then the block max size will then be y = 1*14 + 1 = 15 [MiB]. * If the block max size was 10 MiB four years ago and every miner instead has put positive votes into the block chain since 4.5 years, then the block max size now is 10 MiB * 2^( ((1/2+1/2)/(52)) * 2) = 10 MiB * 4 = 40 MiB * If there was 2628 negative votes and 5256 positive votes in the last 26280 blocks, then the formula will look like: size*2^(((1/2)+(1/2*0.2)-(1/2*0.1))/52)

Pros: Provides a long term solution that give opportunities to the network to itself cope with the actual state and hardware limits of the future network. No need to make a hard fork to adapt to other growth rates within this proposal's limits. Provides a smooth growth rate based on a large consensus, thus making the growth for the near future almost predictable. No big jumps in block max size provides stability to the network. Miners can choose pools that votes in a way that conforms to the miners interest. Eliminates fluctuating block size as could happen with BIP100 proposal.

Cons: A few single, large entities could either vote for smaller growth of blocks for a long time, causing TX congestion and mistrust in the bitcoin network. On the contrary they could vote for a larger growth of blocks, causing the blockchain to be too large for consumer hardware. It will then result in fewer nodes and in worst cases closing of small pools. These cases seems to be extremely unlikely partly because of the time and mining power that will be needed, partly also because of limits in how much the votes can adjust the growth rate. It would therefore not pose a large risk.

Sincerely, Erik Fors

On Friday, November 13, 2015 1:07:33 PM Erik via bitcoin-dev wrote:

> Hi devs. I was discussing the BIP proposals concerning max block size
> yesterday in the #bitcoin channel. I believe that BIP101 fully utilized
> will outperform consumer hardware soon or later and thereby centralize
> Bitcoin. I would therefore like to do a different proposal:

It doesn't look like you've considered BIP103 or newer BIPs? Especially, I'd suggest you look at and work with John Sacco who just the other day posted a BIP draft very similar-looking to yours. My overall impression of your summary is that it is unnecessarily over-complicated and underspecified. How does the 2^(1/2) block size limit actually work? This is not a very precise number, so it seems liable to produce rounding errors in different implementations. Additionally, the miner voting thing seems pointless since miners can already softfork lower limits. It would be beneficial to express the current possibility so full nodes can enforce it, but this would be expressed as an unlimited simple-majority vote to reduce the limit. Probably it would be ideal to separate this off from the hardfork BIP, since it's fairly tangent to it.

Luke

I've seen two different BIP103's and choose to not write about it because risk of ambiguity. One of them are proposing a linear growth and the other one is proposing an exponential growth. The all-linear growth is an option that will not work well in the future because the growth will be too slow soon or later. The exponential growth assumes that the technology will rise in a certain growth, which may be too slow or too fast in accordance to the technical evolution. None of the BIP103 proposals will actually handle an unexpected future case.

BIP105 has another feature not mentioned in my proposal that is to place a vote requires a cost as a difficulty increase. I do not think it's a good option since it will make users refrain from voting to "earn" a difficulty lowering. The votes are the (yet) only soft way I see to let the blockchain know if it should allow growing faster or slower. I also don't see a benefit of having the opportunity to lower the block max size in comparison to the risks involved with that. Then it proposes a limit to how much it can increase at all which will need a new hard fork when we need to increase the limits of the proposal.

I don't see how John Sacco's BIP proposal is similar to this one since there is no voting mechanism to make the increase dynamic. Also John proposes that the size will double at each halving instead of each difficulty retarget. This could, in contrary to increase the fees by making larger spaces in the blocks, decrease the fees because of that the fee required to enter the next block will be lowered. Also it proposes a hard limit at 32 MB which, again, need a new hard fork later.

The formula I've provided isn't actually complicated. The 2^(1/2...) formula creates a number in the interval 1 to 2. The formula can tell if the block max size every second year shall double or be the same based on the last 6 month of votes. Because i believe there should always be an increase to secure a stable growth of the network, there is also a linear formula that the growth cannot be lower than. If the 2^(1/2...) formula gives a lower increase than the linear value for the next retarget, then the linear value should be used instead.

There will not be a rounding error since the implementation shall floor the value to a whole byte. The next size should be calculated on that value. Also, if the block max size is included in the retarget block, there would be an extra correcting method to uncertain clients. The formula isn't very different in complexity from the difficulty retarget formula and will still need the last recalculated value to be computed.

One of the benefits of using an exponential formula is that it could easily be fit for any arbitrary block period by changing the divisor. I personally think the two week interval will be smooth enough.

Erik

Den 2015-11-13 kl. 20:37, skrev Luke Dashjr:

> On Friday, November 13, 2015 1:07:33 PM Erik via bitcoin-dev wrote:
>> Hi devs. I was discussing the BIP proposals concerning max block size
>> yesterday in the #bitcoin channel. I believe that BIP101 fully utilized
>> will outperform consumer hardware soon or later and thereby centralize
>> Bitcoin. I would therefore like to do a different proposal:
>
> It doesn't look like you've considered BIP103 or newer BIPs?

Especially, I'd

> suggest you look at and work with John Sacco who just the other day

posted a

> BIP draft very similar-looking to yours. My overall impression of your

summary

> is that it is unnecessarily over-complicated and underspecified. How

does the

> 2^(1/2) block size limit actually work? This is not a very precise

number, so

> it seems liable to produce rounding errors in different implementations.
> Additionally, the miner voting thing seems pointless since miners can

already

> softfork lower limits. It would be beneficial to express the current
> possibility so full nodes can enforce it, but this would be expressed

as an

> unlimited simple-majority vote to reduce the limit. Probably it would

be ideal

> to separate this off from the hardfork BIP, since it's fairly tangent

to it.

>
> Luke