Re: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

At this point I'd say just find a way to put the forks on the market and let's arbitrage it out. I will submit if a fork cannot gain the market cap advantage, and I suspect the small-blockers will likewise if Core loses it. Money talks.

I had a strange idea recently: what if we don't even bother with BIP100, BIP101, etc., or trying to come to "consensus" in some formal way. What if, instead, we just make it very easy for node operators to adjust their block size limit. Imagine a drop down menu where you can select "1 MB, 2 MB, 4 MB, 8 MB, ." What would happen?

Personally, I'd just select some big block size limit, like 32 MB. This way, I'd be guaranteed to follow the longest proof of work chain, regardless of what the effective block size limit becomes. I'd expect many people to do the same thing. Eventually, it becomes obvious that the economic majority is supporting a larger limit, and a brave miner publishes a block that is 1.1 MB is size. We all witness that indeed that block got included into the longest proof of work chain, and then suddenly all miners are confident producing 1.1 MB blocks. Thus, the effective block size limit slowly creeps upwards, as this process is repeated over and over as demand for block space grows.

TL/DR: maybe we don't need a strict definition for the max block size limit.

Nodes have the power to do that, even a right given they host the data, however they dont have the the market knowledge to know what it should be, the power to set the block size must come from the incentive schema designed as designed by Satosi to work. I cant imagine it would work out well at all, probably better than limiting the block size but not my much.

that's not the pt.

the full nodes should and will care only about what tx volume they have the capability or desire to validate. for me, despite not getting paid, i will want to max out those validation capabilities to whatever i'm willing to pay (donate) to the network, which is much higher than it is being used today. i want Bitcoin to grow in size and price so i'm going to donate to my hearts content trying to make that happen. the Cripplecoiners will say that is no way to run a full node but i'll bet there are thousands of guys like me who are willing to do this for the prospect of taking the price to the next 10x level. there is nothing wrong with wanting a higher price b/c a much higher price is essential to Bitcoin's overall success and ability to move large scale tx's as we've argued about before. it has to be able to allow large tx's in the $millions to fund purchases of real estate, yachts, planes or bigger items so as not to perturb the overall exchange price, unlike what we have today.

as more users come onboard, merchants will have the incentive, not to mention fiduciary responsibility to run full nodes. that's a good thing.

but if someone designs a full node fee mkt, i won't be complaining either.