Author: Andrew Johnson 2017-01-27 23:53:02
Published on: 2017-01-27T23:53:02+00:00
In a conversation on the bitcoin-dev mailing list, a member asked for input on whether they thought that the 17% yearly increase in block size limit was reasonable. The person arguing for the increase highlighted improvements in technology since the limit was last set, including a doubling of single hard drive capacity and a 31% increase in global average internet bandwidth. They also mentioned improvements in CPUs and new tools like xThin and compact blocks to help with block propagation time. However, they acknowledged that quadratic hashing would still be an issue if the blocksize were raised. Another member responded that they did not think the proposed 66% decrease in block size limit was realistic. They also pointed out that Satoshi Nakamoto had envisioned most full nodes running in data centers rather than every user needing to run one. They argued that bitcoin should remain as peer-to-peer cash rather than a settlement layer only available to the wealthiest and largest transactions.A third member of the conversation, one of the authors of the paper being discussed, clarified that the 4MB number was an optimistic upper bound on network capacity and that there is no magic number beyond which "bad things" happen. They noted that miner centralization pressure is felt earlier in the spectrum of network capacity.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T21:17:42.929968+00:00