And why do we need to determine the max block size 20 years out? Indeed, it's impossible to make logical estimations about future transaction volume..... so why invent an arbitrary number and just go with it?
because you see now that it is nearly impossible to change bitcoin protocol. it gets harder and harder with more users. i am pretty sure if satoshi has forseen this discussions he would never introduced the temporary 1mb spam limit in the first place.
Nearly impossible? How do you figure? This is just irrational fear mongering. All future problems will not be solved with this hard fork. If you believe that a future hard fork will kill bitcoin because consensus is impossible, you may as well leave bitcoin while you can.
And regarding Satoshi's opinion:
Applying this patch will make you incompatible with other Bitcoin clients.
+1 theymos. Don't use this patch, it'll make you incompatible with the network, to your own detriment.
We can phase in a change later if we get closer to needing it.
Irrational fear mongering.
Block capacity is connected to transaction volume growth. So we have real world data to estimate our capacity needs for the foreseeable future. And those simply don't line up with 8MB or 8GB. Maybe in the future they will.... maybe. We can cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, the emphasis should be on consensus. A conservative approach that scales to real-world needs rather than fantasized ones based on Moore's Law is much preferable in that regard.
Six years in, we have not hit capacity. Why are we planning on 8000x capacity 20 years from now? Just because? Incredible lack of foresight, and quite audacious to assume that we have every possible technical problem that may arise figured out, today.
we cant estimate transaction volume growth... one big war, one good media report, one country accepts bitcoin as main currency: one billion people trying to buy bitcoin in one week? no way to calculate something like with an algorithm.
Yeah. Cross that bridge when we come to it. This insane idea that "the whole world is going to adopt bitcoin tomorrow" is absurd. There is no logical reason why we can't scale based on actual transaction growth. Again, this is just fear mongering with no technical foresight.
the blocksize debate is going on for years now. many people think it shouldnt change even if transaction backlog starts to grow. and now you are telling me that its just fear mongering when i say its nearly impossible to change the bitcoin protocol? c'mon...
i didnt say that the whole world will adopt bitcoin tomorrow. i think its just shortsighted to think an algorithm would work.
and "cross the bridge when we come to it": well you want to change a p2p system without warning its users beforehand? a protocol change needs time... if the utxo is 1gb its too late