Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on February 15, 2015, 01:48:55 AM

Quote from: solex on February 15, 2015, 12:09:01 AM

I'm liking JR's paper. Micropayment channels is the most constructive approach to permanently dealing with the block size limit, since defenders of the limit are mostly concerned about the data overhead on full nodes.

Maybe if the limit was higher. Payment channels still require at least one transaction per payment channel set. How often are you willing to reset payment channels? Once per week, once per month, once per year? The longer the period the larger the initial escrowed amount. How many payment channels if the average user going to have. Say the average user accepts escrowing 6 months worth of future payments and has 3 payment channels payees each. BTW I consider this unrealistically low and of this was the upper limit most users would trade principles for convinience and user centralized services. Still lets look at it as an upper bound. That still requires 6 on block transactions per user per year. 2 tps @ 6 txn per user = 10.5 million users.

Do you really think Bitcoin will be a global revolution with an upper limit @ 10 million users?

Payment channels are a great concept but even they are hamstrung but a ridiculously low limit. We wouldn't even be having this discussion if the limit was anywhere near realistic but it simply isn't. A 1MB cap is simply a joke. It just guarantees that either Bitcoin dies on the vine or it is replaced by something superior. Payment channels, sidechains, and cross chain atomic transactions are transaction multipliers. They move us from one economic transaction per block transaction to more than one economic transaction per block transaction and that is a great thing. If natively a blockchain can support n users it can support xn users where x>1 using payment channels. In essence they make the primary block space more efficient but efficiency only takes us so far. You can't get any kind of scalability out of 1MB permanent limit. It either remains perpetually a nerd toy or it is killed off by something which can scale.

We won't know what "kind of scalability out of 1MB permanent limit" is possible, until we get there and observe how the system (market/ecosystem/infrastructure) reacts. Testnet can't predict nor account for Human Action.

We're already out of "nerd toy" territory. We're in the middle, somewhere between obscure curiosity and Great Success.

$3-$6 billion market cap isn't a "joke." When you say "upper limit @ 10 million users" you obviously mean direct users, purposely excluding indirect users. Even in Bitopia, most people won't even realize (or care) that their handy/magical payment network is transparently settled using BTC, LTC, etc.

Capital B Bitcoins, which cost ~$250 each, must scale vertically, with no need (or want) for more transactions when the average transaction/fee is growing exponentially in value. This store-of-value function is logically prior to ensuing systems-of-payment purposes.

Forking on a whim, so some VCs who bought $1000 BTCs are that much closer to realizing their dream of everyone using BTC at Coke machines and Starbucks, harms the store-of-value function by diluting the previously more scare and extremely valuable commodity of blockchain real estate.

Lower case b bitcoin, the FOSS anyone can fork, scales horizontally, so each cup of coffee can find a place to call home on an appropriate side/alt-chain.

Bitcoin won't "die on the vine." It will do very well, the best of all, even as it is supplanted (not "replaced") by other coins.

We can all benefit from a gold standard without the need to maintain a personal vault or drive a Brinks truck to the coffee shop. Myopic focus on direct use is red herring.

10 million direct users is more than sufficient for the Global Bitcoin Revolution. Even as indirect users, the rest of us can still participate/innovate/benefit.