Author: Alex Morcos 2015-06-26 18:29:51
Published on: 2015-06-26T18:29:51+00:00
The debate surrounding block size has been ongoing for a while, with some people arguing that larger blocks are necessary for the long-term evolution of Bitcoin's blockchain technology. However, others disagree and believe that a fear of economic change should not be a reason to increase block size. Pieter Wuille argues that people should focus on decentralization rather than economic policy or change. He believes that it is important to understand which uses fit and which do not when it comes to putting microtransactions on the blockchain. Wuille also notes that achieving decentralization and lack of trusted third parties is expensive using existing technology. Wuille is worried about centralization, stating that having 10 centralized miners and processing nodes running the network would not be beneficial. While a bitcoin with giant blocks could serve more use cases, it does not provide value if it is centralized. Wuille believes that some uses will move off-chain because the blockchain cannot offer what they need, but that this is inevitable at any size, and therefore we shouldn't be afraid of change or try to stop it. In contrast, Jeff Garzik argues that inaction leads to consistent fee pressure as system volume grows, which ultimately results in economic policy change and market and software disruption. Garzik explains that Bitcoin Core increases the soft limit to prevent "full" blocks each time we approach the soft limit, and Mike Hearn lobbies miners to upgrade. Garzik argues that it is critical to deal with what is currently happening, rather than what we wish the world to be. He notes that a fee market needs to develop, but there is nothing wrong with the current anti-spam relay fee metric, which is sufficient to prevent fee pressure above the norm. Wuille agrees that larger blocks may be necessary in the long term, but only if we believe it increases utility and understand the risks. He notes that it seems silly to make a huge increase at once out of fear of what might happen if we don't hurry up. Wuille believes that demand for payments in general is nearly infinite, and only a small portion of it will eventually fit on a blockchain, independent of its size. He thinks that systems that compete with Bitcoin offer orders of magnitude more capacity than we can achieve with any blockchain technology at this point. Wuille concludes that we should embrace change rather than be afraid of it, focusing on decentralization rather than economic policy or change.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T01:05:42.824575+00:00