Quote from: davout on December 28, 2010, 01:31:21 PM

See http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf chapters 7 and 8

Good - thanks.

Quote from: davout on December 28, 2010, 01:31:21 PM

You seem to assume that it is desirable that bitcoin be good at micro-payments, I don't think it has any importance whether the core protocol is inefficient at it or not.

Of course I think it is desirable. Why would I think not?

I agree that it appears out of reach, at least given our current understanding.

But if the core mechanism provided perfect security and instant validation of millions of simultaneous payment requests of value from tiny fractions of a BTC to billions of BTCs, why would that not be desirable?

The closer we can push the core mechanisms to that ~~ideal~~ imaginary goal, the better, all else being equal.

First however we need to reverse engineer the protocols, validate that specification with the successful implementation of alternative, fully compatible, clients, and subject the network behavior to a rigorous algorithmic complexity analysis. I presume there are others with similar goals, who have already made some progress in such directions. As I read through old posts on this forum, I will likely find postings mentioning such efforts.