Author: Gavin Andresen 2015-05-28 17:19:44
Published on: 2015-05-28T17:19:44+00:00
In an email conversation between Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen, they discussed the issue of fee pressure in block size. Hearn suggested that the current fee pressure was turning away users for no purpose as mining isn't supported by fees and the tiny fees being used seemed to be good enough to stop penny flooding. He also questioned why the max size was set to 2x the average size instead of 20x. To this, Andresen responded that twenty was a scary number and two was a very neutral number. If 50% of hashpower wanted the max size to grow as fast as possible and 50% were dead-set opposed to any increase, then half would produce blocks 2 times as big, half would produce empty blocks, and the max size wouldn't change. Andresen concluded that developers should not decide whether or not fees are too high or too low but rather focus on making block propagation faster so there is no technical reason for miners to produce tiny blocks.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T20:05:50.294650+00:00