Author: Michael Ruddy 2015-08-03 13:57:55
Published on: 2015-08-03T13:57:55+00:00
The writer discusses the potential consequences of raising or removing block and transaction size limits on the Bitcoin network. They argue that such changes may not have a significant effect if miners choose to maintain their current policies regarding block and transaction sizes. The economic majority is identified as a natural check-and-balance that can influence miner behavior by reducing the purchasing power of block rewards in response to actions that negatively affect the usefulness or properties of the system. The writer suggests that miners do not currently favor smaller blocks and transactions due to the risk of making the system less useful and driving away users. In terms of maintaining consensus on acceptable block and transaction sizes, the writer proposes the use of a secondary, non-consensus rule layer that indicates what sizes are acceptable to the economic majority. This could be reflected in transport protocols used by users. The writer also notes that external bandwidth limitations connecting China to the internet could pose a problem for non-Chinese miners if Chinese miners cease building on top of blocks that cannot be synced in a timely fashion into China.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T18:03:23.473318+00:00