Quote from: davout on February 09, 2015, 02:47:21 PM

Quote from: Rampion on February 09, 2015, 02:42:47 PM

I just think that rule should be very well thought.

It's not a rule that's needed, like tvbcof said, a line needs to be drawn.

It seems pretty reasonable to assume that 50% of people will not be off-grid. That is, will have cell phones and are wealthy enough that they can afford a pot to piss in. That is seems a reasonable threshold to not be to 'elitist' so lets assume some sort of pandemic or something makes 3x10^9 a good number for inclusion into the Bitcoin system.

Notwithstanding the promise of such a 'frictionless' exchange economy makes it so that I could throw a few 1/10ths of a cent at someone because I like their avatar, let's assume that each human of the new Bitcoin Elite makes 1 economic transaction per day. I live a life of isolation and celibacy at the moment (quite by choice) but between paying my bills on-line and buying beef jerky and breves when I do go to town, I'm probably not far off that number. Given how most normal humans live (which often includes a trip to the market to get supplies for the day's meals) 1 trx/day is probably quite conservative.

When I do the math, this yields around 35,000 tps. About 15,000 times today's capacity using Gerald's 2.3 current tps figure. Let's say 10,000 times to be conservative. Thus, any 'problem' we have now needs to be multiplied by about 10,000 times in order to support what is still a fairly inclusive and conservative system.

Anyone who has not done so should look at the post on the Multibit sticky thread and note the guy who was practically in tears trying to run his full node just long enough to get is stash moved over to an SPV client so someone else's server could do the work. Multiply his grief by 10,000 times. Or have a gander at one's load average as a node is in operation checking transactions for legality...and multiply it by 10,000 times. Look at the size of the blockchain then multiply it by much more than 10,000 times in this case because of how integral calculus works. (Don't bore me with pruning unless you want to show me the beef after 6 years.) Look at the UTXO and multiply that by at least 10,000 times and probably much more (which at some point which I'm to lazy and ignorant to calculate likely becomes impossible.)

This little bit of number punching aligns with my intuitive perceptions: either Bitcoin is always going to be a fairly 'elite' system, or it won't have almost any resemblance to the ecosystem as it existed when I first compiled the source code. Bitcoin will always be a niche solution which is augmented. The only realistic hope is that it interacts in a good way with the augmentation schemes. Again, an infinite set of subordinate chains which derive their backing directly from Bitcoin (such as sidechains) seems to me by far the best hope.

I strongly suspect that Gavin doesn't want to produce any real future vision for Bitcoin because he doesn't want to look at what he knows he (and everyone else) will find.

The transaction rate of Bitcoin is a highly critical aspect of it's design. Changes here will shape the system even more than changes to it's inflation rate as I see it. The transaction rate is also like a ratchet in that it can move one way with relative ease but cannot be moved the other because it picks up baggage that can never be dropped off. It's one thing to blow it based on careful system analysis which turns out to be wrong. It is quite another thing to blow it based on some faith-based Hail Mary, and that's what Gavin's 'plan' looks like to me. Or it's a deliberate attempt to torpedo Bitcoin. Both hypotheses are open in my mind.

- edits: slight fixes