Author: Jorge Timón 2015-07-31 11:51:04
Published on: 2015-07-31T11:51:04+00:00
Mike Hearn, a bitcoin developer, has suggested that the centralisation of mining is already terrible and increasing block size would not help. While he has seen assertions that node count, mining centralisation, and developers not using Bitcoin Core in their own businesses are all to do with block sizes, he argues that no one has shown this is true or provided evidence. He believes arbitrarily capping the block size will not move the needle on these metrics. However, if someone doesn't think the block size cap limits centralisation, they should say so. Hearn suggests that it would be nice to have some sort of simulation to calculate a "centralisation heuristic" for different possible blocksize values so we can compare these arbitrary numbers somehow. He says that if we can't agree on what the limit is for, we will never be able to agree on whether 1MB (current situation) or 8GB (bip101) is the most appropriate value to have at a given point in time. Although he agrees that some use cases will be priced out even with 8mb+ blocks, he still believes there will still be a need for micropayment channels, centralised exchange platforms, and other forms of off-chain transaction.Regarding supporting a large scale, he thinks it hasn't even been tried yet. However, if Bitcoin needs to support a scale that is only feasible with high degrees of centralization then it has already failed in its decentralisation goals. Risking destroying Bitcoin through centralisation to be able to keep free transactions for longer it's a very risky gamble. Finally, he suggests that anyone setting up exchanges shouldn't do so solely for the lure of large future profits.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T04:30:55.901923+00:00