Author: Jorge Timón 2015-08-10 19:28:48
Published on: 2015-08-10T19:28:48+00:00
The discussion between Elliot Olds and Jorge Timón revolves around the trade-off between lower transaction fees and mining centralization in Bitcoin, with both agreeing that decentralization is important. However, they believe that risks to decentralization need to be evaluated probabilistically and concretely.The two discuss various hypothetical scenarios regarding block size increases and the potential risks and benefits associated with them. They also talk about the potential harms of high transaction fees, such as limiting access to Bitcoin's decentralization for people in poor countries and preventing developers from experimenting with new use-cases.Despite this, they acknowledge that minimum mining fees rising above zero may not necessarily be a bad thing or an urgent concern. The risks of increasing the consensus block size maximum are also discussed, such as reducing the number of full nodes. The conversation highlights the importance of being specific and concrete when evaluating potential changes to Bitcoin's protocol.The concept of a "market minimum fee" has been utilized in Bitcoin's past, such as during the recent stress tests. However, the current code used by miners to select transactions for inclusion needs improvement, as miners are currently subsidizing free transactions that are increasing their own costs.A fee market will eventually be necessary to pay for most of the global hashrate in the future, but it is better not to set up roadblocks for Bitcoin's growth which may make things painful if sudden growth occurs. Insisting on a fee market at this time could potentially cause fees to skyrocket and put decentralized money out of reach for many people. It is best to wait until Bitcoin needs to rely heavily on transaction fees for security before adjusting block size to ensure enough total fees for security.While some argue that free transactions may need to disappear someday, others believe that as long as there are people willing to pay for confirmation of their transactions, there is no reason to deny those who choose to pay nothing. Overall, a minimum fee increase would not necessarily be a bad thing and should not be feared to the point of rushing hardforks to avoid it.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T04:32:02.642467+00:00