Author: Arkady 2015-05-08 06:33:18
Published on: 2015-05-08T06:33:18+00:00
In an email exchange between Gregory Maxwell and Matt Corallo, Maxwell expresses confusion and concern over the sudden push for a block size increase without any communication on Github. Maxwell argues that block size increases are largely an externality that only benefit miners at the cost of reduced security or higher node operating costs for everyone else. He points out that mining has become incredibly centralized over time, which causes a latent undermining of the security model. According to him, mining centralization itself is a bigger systemic risk than a block size increase. Hardfork changes should only be made if they're almost completely uncontroversial, where virtually everyone can agree that it isn't undermining their property rights or future use of Bitcoin. Maxwell also mentions that the recent "revelation" of paid trolls on popular forum sites does not invalidate the relevance of every non-"industry" voice and that elevating the discussion away from users does the system and the development process an injustice. He questions whether people are aware of concerns such as hashcash-mediated dynamic block size limiting and proposals like the lightning network, which offer instant transactions and massive scale in exchange for some short-term DOS risk if a counterparty opts out. Finally, he argues that it is not okay for everyone to depend on a small number of "Google scale" node operations for the system, and if this is the future people envision, they will never agree on ideological grounds.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T19:55:57.673620+00:00