Quote from: thezerg on July 09, 2015, 05:44:58 PM

Quote from: justusranvier on July 09, 2015, 04:33:23 PM

Quote from: tvbcof on July 09, 2015, 04:47:58 AM

Don't worry. According to Mike Hearn Bitcoin can survive just fine with 4 or 6 (forgot which) copies of the blockchain worldwide.

Is he right or wrong about that?

Via what methodology would we test that hypothesis before arriving at a conclusion about its validity?

Who cares? Before you ask that question you need to show reasonable likelihood that increasing the block size to 8MB will drop the number of full nodes to 4 or 6.

Frankly, I think that a dramatic reduction of nodes is more likely if Bitcoin becomes a settlement network than if the block size is increased to 8MB. NOBODY will be interested in holding the data if they can't use the network, so the only full nodes will be those sponsored by the payment aggregators. These aggregators are also perfect locations for governments to apply identity and green address pressure, destroying fungibility.

What do you think about reduction of nodes if the block size is increased to 8,000 MB ?
Why do you think "NOBODY will be interested" processing 100,000 transaction per day worth $1,000,000 in fees ? (especially in the case, that it can be run on a phone ? -> almost no expenses )

Edit:
if you keep block size small then no sponsors are required to run full node b/c it is cheap and millions will run full node just for fun. (I'll be one of them)