Quote from: solex on May 05, 2013, 11:30:18 PM

Quote from: SgtSpike on May 05, 2013, 11:15:07 PM

Quote from: lophie on May 05, 2013, 10:55:28 PM

Quote from: SgtSpike on May 05, 2013, 10:51:16 PM

Now, we will be regulated to only sending transactions of a certain size. No free market choice here...

Shame of them limiting the amount to one satoshi! it should be 1/100000 of a satoshi.....

What kind of argument is that? Roll Eyes

You have a point, but Bitcoin started with an understanding that 1 satoshi was the minimum. Now, we're being told that the limit is 5340 satoshis, with no free-market input on the matter. It's rather disappointing. Individuals should be able to decide what size of transaction is too small - we shouldn't all be forced to suddenly abide by the same arbitrary rule.

5340 satoshis is negligible, less than a US or Euro cent, and a very sensible minimum. This cutoff is a needed arbitrary rule which mirrors the real-world where fiat sub-cent transactions are also unwelcome. The 5340 will be reduced as BTC value increases.

This whole thread is a fuss about a benefit interpreted wrongly.

The Achilles Heel of Bitcoin is being swamped by transactions worth less than a cent because, unlike fiat coinage transactions, Bitcoin transactions are stored on thousands of servers for years or forever.

This...

Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on May 10, 2013, 03:19:22 AM

Quote from: astutiumRob on May 10, 2013, 02:24:16 AM

Quote from: jgarzik on May 06, 2013, 05:06:33 PM

It increases the costs of that dataset that cannot be pruned

There's no real reason the dataset cannot be pruned - i've been playing with a DB copy of a blockchain, looking at ways of "removing" the records for accounts with a nil balance (amount out = total amounts in) where date is > 30 days ago

I think you misunderstand. Nobody is saying the blockchain can't be pruned. IT CAN be pruned however the UXTO (set of unspent outputs which can still be inputs for future txs) CAN'T be pruned. That is fine because generally the UXTO is going to grow slower than the blockchain (people tend to spend unspent outputs creating roughly the same number of unspent outputs). There is one exception. That is UNECONOMICAL outputs.

If you have a 0.0000001 output but it would cost 100x as much in fees to spend it would you spend it? Of course not. Kinda like mailing a penny (at a cost of $0.46) to your bank to apply to your mortgage principal. Nobody does that it doesn't make economical sense. So these uneconomically outputs are likely NEVER going to be spent. Each one that is produced won't be spent and thus won't be pruned and will remain in the UXTO forever (or a very long time on average) this is causing the UXTO to bloat and will continue to bloat as there is no reason for anyone to ever spend these outputs (and spending is what allows an output to be pruned).

The UXTO is the critical resources. In order to validate tx quickly the UXTO needs to be in memory. So what happens when the UXTO is 32GB? 64GB? 200GB? Now if those are "valid" outputs likely to be used in future tx well that is just the cost of being a full node. But when 50%, 70%, 95%+ of the outputs are just unspendable garbage it greatly increases the processing requirements of full nodes without any benefit, to anyone.

Quote

I don't *need* as a _user_ of bitcoins the whole blockchain, if I could get "balances at point in time" and the journal entries after that.

Of course you don't which is the whole point of pruning the blockchain however you do need to retain a copy of every unspent output otherwise when you receive tx or block containing that output as an input in a new tx you can't validate the tx or block. If the input is coming to you, you can't even know if the tx/block is valid or just some nonsense garbage that an attacker sent to trick you into thinking your got paid.

This unprunable dataset is a subset of the blockchain however tx below the dust thresholding simply bloat this.

Absolutely,
the solution could be "send all dust transactions in a transaction to miners as fees or back as change" IF the destination address IS empty(or under 0.1btc),

that will help with the spam and spam like transactions, example: 1000 million chinese/indian creating new addreses, going to a faucet and receiving satoshis that will never be used because they will lost their wallet.dat in hd crash... If they want to use the faucet they should get 0.1 btc first.