In the interest of full disclosure, my thoughts on an ideal solution to the issue of block size have been similar to the below proposal for several years now. I'm still not convinced it isn't the best solution. Though I'm not
quite sure the economics all work out exactly. It requires a bit more thought.
23:59 benjamindees so, here's an idea to think about with regards to block size
23:59 benjamindees (not sure if it's been proposed before because frankly I haven't been paying close attention)
23:59 benjamindees one main chain limited to something reasonable, 5mb or so
00:00 benjamindees one sidechain that is effectively unlimited
00:01 benjamindees I'm not even sure that is even technically feasible, but it seems like a compromise to consider.
00:01 sipa benjamindees: if that's a perfect solution, why not a main chain with 1 kb limit, and an unlimited sidechain?
00:01 sipa benjamindees: it just moves the problem
00:03 sipa sorry, i'm making assumptions
00:03 benjamindees sipa, like I said, I'm not sure it's technically feasible -- gmaxwell led me to believe it may be
00:03 sipa it's possible to see sidechains as a place where 'overflow transactions' can happen which don't fit on the main chain
00:03 sipa but it is a compromise
00:04 sipa as that sidechain itself now gets all the problems that a main chain with the same size would have, at least
00:05 benjamindees sipa, I'm not really thinking of overflow transactions... more like almost all transactions occur on the sidechain
00:05 benjamindees and then people with limited bandwidth or for whatever other reason can do transactions on the main chain
00:06 Luke-Jr sipa: global + national sidechains may be workable
00:06 sipa benjamindees: that's no better than just increasing the bitcoin block size
00:06 benjamindees Luke-Jr, see, that's what I'd rather avoid
00:06 Luke-Jr another alternative is to have day-to-day transactions on a sidechain and reconcile with the main chain monthly or whatever
00:07 Luke-Jr to compress history at least
00:07 benjamindees sipa, it moves the perceived risk of increased block size to an (optional) side chain
00:07 sipa benjamindees: the problem with increasing the block size is that increases the costs to validate that nobody is cheating
00:07 sipa benjamindees: if you have an infinite-size sidechain, then that sidechain also has that problem
00:08 Luke-Jr sipa: at least a larger-but-not-infinite sidechain would make it opt-in
00:08 benjamindees sipa, but you don't have to use the sidechain if you don't want
Source:
http://bitcoinstats.com/irc/bitcoin-dev/logs/2015/01/22Since this conversation, I have decided that the suggestion of 5mb main block size is not sufficient, that it should be at least 128mb instead.
Regardless, the reason for this arrangement is very simple. It has been clear for a long time that Bitcoin will never be capable of scaling to accommodate all global transactions
while simultaneously remaining substantially decentralized and accessible to the average user. This proposal is not perfect. But it is the simplest arrangement capable of accomplishing both goals.