I am concerned that it does make it harder (more costly) to run a node, but I think those costs are worth bearing, I lean more towards the idea that people can transact without a trusted third party, than people must be able to transact on their own node. I think the broadcasting of a transaction to the network is reliable and 'decentralised' enough for smaller value, and if you are in the business of making large transactions such that you need the security of running your own node then you bear the cost of this and factor it in.
I don't follow how it would be in any way sensible to throw all caution to the window because you consider the network "is reliable and decentralised enough"
now, ignoring that what we're trying to prevent is for this aspect to slip away from us
in the future.
I'm curious to know if you've read this article and if so what did you think of it?
http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/measuring-decentralization/It concerns me that bigger blocks *could* favour big miners, but I don't think that's a certainty. I don't think that either side has provide conclusively that it will or it won't. I think ingenuity in the market place will prevail, as it typically does, and that the larger miners will be contained by inertia, and the smaller miners will be dynamic enough to squeeze out value in niches. I think the 'centralisation' of mining by referring to pools is a red herring, I think the 50% attack is 'self-limiting' and mitigable - I think anyone that attempts it is 'one' and the 'others' will move away, I think the protocol allows for this (and any future development should always pay heed to not forfeiting this).
We have factual evidence that propagation issues have lead a certain portion of Chinese miners to coordinate their transaction validation by way of SPV mining, a clear centralization threat. On the other hand I'm afraid most of what you've written above sounds to me like "let's cross fingers, knock on wood and hope nothing bad happens".
I'm sure you'll understand others have similar concerns and would like to avoid for the security (and decentralization) of the network to rely on more than "hope".
I think that having bigger blocks does not provide a lasting solution to scaling the bitcoin network in terms of transactional throughput. I think its essential that other technologies are investigated. It occurred to me the other day that one solution already exists in the form of alt-coins. Sure they are not pegged, and sure they are volatile, but isn't that exactly the same argument levelled at bitcoin!? If we believe that over time bitcoin will capture a significant portion of the value in the world that fiat represents then it must inevitably stabilise. I think alts are probably on that same path just a little farther behind, and that this just mimics the current situation we have with competing fiat currencies. As one or two (or 4 or 17) alts emerge as the silvers to bitcoins gold, then I think they will gain the credibility, and assurance through hash rate that their chains are secure enough to handle, say, starbucks purchases.
I think the concept of alt as some sort of liquidity source for lower value transactions is not certain and IMO quite unlikely. I am of the belief that there can be only one POW coin and competitors will slowly but surely wither away. In other words, I don't think they're the solution we're looking for...
Then there is Blockstream and the lightning network. I think that, they certainly think they are doing something great. I didn't at first but thats because I was afraid. Who am I to say they are not? I think there is enormous capacity for the development of a wide range of new crypto-financial-institutions. Much as I have my head in the idealogical cloud of bitcoin destroying TPTB and bringing about a new era of cashless, bankless anarchy, I think that the reality is that many of the existing structures will remain they'll just pivot on a s/USD/XBT/g
So let Blockchain set up a trusted third party scheme, with subscription fees so that exchanges can swap XBT off chain. Let anyone else who feels they can add-value to BTC set up a service, sell it, win customers and profit. At the end of the day capitalism is a great system, that is let down by accountability and 'cheating' amongst other things. BTC can address a couple of those things imho.
Lightning network and Blockstream are two things independent of each other. There are multiple implementations of the Lightning protocol being worked on, one of which is supported by Blockstream. Moreover Lightning involves no custodial trust. It is quite simply an intelligent use of Bitcoin's existing scripting features that allow for a superficial write-cache layer to be surimposed on top of Bitcoin's blockchain. To address your distinction of solution vs. "evolution", I consider Lightning and Sidechains to be exactly that: natural evolutions of Bitcoin's stack supported by a limited but robust base protocol and improved through layered innovation.
More details here:
http://lightning.network/lightning-network-summary.pdfNow with regards to my philosophical take on what is going on. I think on the one hand people talk about how great openness and sharing is and how letting the market decide is better because its more 'decentralised'. I think now bitcoin is big though, people are scared because there is more to lose and so automatically revert to the old hierarchical models of thinking. I think people assume that, despite the countless examples throughout nature, science, history etc that humans can be smarter. I categorically believe that no individual (or small group) is smarter than the commons. I think there is something fundamentally successful about evolutionary process. I think that the imposition of restrictions on any system introduces points of failure.
Have you considered that removing the block size limit does not leave the decision into the hands of "the market" (if it exists in that context) but up to individual miners, according to their respective resources?
Who would you rather have influence the security and decentralization of the network?
Miners who are largely profit-driven actors and have shown worrying disregard for the network's health at times or the code dictated by existing consensus amongst network peers (full nodes) and investors?