Quote from: Lauda on February 06, 2016, 08:53:57 PM

Quote from: VeritasSapere on February 06, 2016, 08:39:21 PM

I think it is the other way around, not increasing the blocksize makes it harder not to rely on third parties, at least with SPV wallets we do still regain control of our private keys.

It is not the other way around. The harder it gets to create a full node, the more users will have to rely on third parties. SPV wallets rely on the node that they're connected to.

I suppose we can agree to disagree on this point, I think the ability to transact freely, cheaply and directly with the Bitcoin blockchain is more important then the ability to run a full node, or the cost of independent validation. Not that an increase to two megabyte would even increase the difficulty of running a full node significantly, this does need to be a balancing act after all.

Quote from: Lauda on February 06, 2016, 08:53:57 PM

Quote from: VeritasSapere on February 06, 2016, 08:39:21 PM

Not increasing the blocksize leads to much higher transaction costs while making transacting directly on the Bitcoin network also much more unreliable.

"much higher"? No. We have not had experience with this and thus you can't know exactly how much of a increase there is going to be. It doesn't make transacting unreliable at all. The system will continue functioning as it should, transactions of higher priority will confirm faster.

How much higher the fees will actually be depends on the level of adoption, I personally think that Bitcoin will be obsoleted and outcompeted if we do not increase the blocksize. However hypothetically at least under increased adoption it would become much more expensive, so expensive that it would not be practical or even feasible for "normal" people to use the Bitcoin blockchain, it will be reserved for large financial institutions and banks as a type of settlement network. Not that I think this would even happen without the mass adoption by the people as a currency first which is what I advocate. I do question who would want to even run full nodes for the financial institutions? Since it would no longer be a peer to peer network by and for the people at that point.

It is not the case that you just need to pay a higher fee, this is a misnomer that is often repeated. There will not be enough space for everyone to transact regardless of the fee that is payed, furthermore it will be impossible to know at any one time how much of a fee will even be required, which is why many transactions will likely never be confirmed at all. Essentially you would need to enter a bidding war with large financial institutions, payment processors and banks, which I would not consider a good user experience compared to what we have today.

Quote from: Lauda on February 06, 2016, 08:53:57 PM

Quote from: VeritasSapere on February 06, 2016, 08:39:21 PM

Increasing the blocksize leads to a marginal increase in the cost of running a full node, especially the increase we are discussing to two megabyte is unlikely to have a significant effect on node count.

I wasn't talking about 2 MB directly. It is going to have an effect on the node count, that is undeniable. The question is: "Is this effect negligible or not?".

I suppose you rather side with caution when faced with an uncertainty? I suppose I feel differently especially with such a revolutionary experiment like Bitcoin. We should not cripple the project out of caution.

Quote from: Lauda on February 06, 2016, 08:53:57 PM

Quote from: VeritasSapere on February 06, 2016, 08:39:21 PM

I have nothing against the lighting network as long as it is not used as a reason to restrict the main Bitcoin blockchain. I think we should scale Bitcoin directly and if people still choose to use the lighting network instead then that is fine, then we would not need to increase the blocksize again.

You keep talking about it like they're comparable. Bitcoin does not scale well by design. You can't change that, you can keep lying about it as much as you want. Engineers are the judge of that, not people with various other useless backgrounds. What LN offers is hard to describe on a scale of efficiency in comparison to transacting on the main chain.

Efficiency is not everything, it might be to an engineer but there is more to life then that. You have not answered my question of why sacrificing efficiency for political and ideological goals can be justified, in the same way that Bitcoin and something like the concept of democracy already does this inherently in its design.

Quote from: Lauda on February 06, 2016, 08:53:57 PM

Quote from: VeritasSapere on February 06, 2016, 08:39:21 PM

I do not think that layer one was restricted in order to strengthen the other layers. Furthermore layer one, so to speak still remains the most important and most used part of the internet.

No, neither statements are correct. Do you even know what operates at the first layer? Of course you don't.

I presumed you where referring to the Internet Protocol as layer one.

Quote from: Lauda on February 06, 2016, 08:53:57 PM

Quote from: VeritasSapere on February 06, 2016, 08:39:21 PM

These statements absolutely do have a correlation by moving transactions off chain we are depriving miners from potential fees.

It can work the other way around: With so much empty space after the HF I'll be sure not to include a fee (or include a much lower fee). Why would I? You've deprive miners of "potential fees" either way.

I doubt it would change the behavior of the miners significantly compared to today, even at a higher blocksize limit, miners still determine what transactions to include and not to include. It also does not change the fundamental fact that moving transactions off chain does deprive the miners from potential fees, this is inherently true.

Quote from: Lauda on February 06, 2016, 08:53:57 PM

Quote from: VeritasSapere on February 06, 2016, 08:39:21 PM

And you should stop fear mongering, increasing the blocksize to two megabyte will not be catastrophic in anyway. That you are even mentioning orphan rates at two megabytes is ridiculous and just reveals that you do not have any proper criticisms of such an increase, its not like segwit in all of its complexity presents less risk?

This is not "fear mongering" as some uneducated person (in this field) would say. This is how you build a strong and secure system. If you're being optimistic (and not realistic) everything is most likely going to come crashing down on you. We already have orphan rates that are causing miners to experience losses, those will likely increase with 2 MB blocks (so much about "do not have any proper criticisms). People are afraid of what they don't understand; Segwit is one of those things.

The contradiction in your position has already been pointed out. How can you possibly say that an increase to two megabyte is unsafe while simultaneously arguing that segwit is safe? When both increase the effective blocksize while being radically different in terms of complexity.

Orphan rates today are not causing any significant losses to miners, any losses due to orphans are most often evenly distributed across the pools as well. If orphan rates did ever become an issue the pools could simply move their node to another datacentre, it is that simple, I do not see the problem with this at all. If anything it is a good thing, since if miners profits are effected by bigger blocks they can simply create smaller blocks, problem solved. They can decide for themselves what risks they take and parameters they use, they do not need us to hold their hand. I even think that we should not concern ourselves with the miners to much since mining is a self balancing system no matter what happens, we should focus more on giving the network value that is what will be good for the miners, and I am saying this as a miner myself.