OK, JJG. Tell me what the plan is to deal with the fact that once blocks are persistently full, then average fees rise uncontrollably, average wait times raise uncontrollably, LN channel openings and closings get economically prohibitive, and number of new entrants gets hard-capped.
What is the plan, JJG - what is the plan?
The blocksize
will be increased when necessary. Double the size, double the transactions. Not yet, though. The possible benefits are still outweighed by the risk of spam, which we all have seen. We haven't seen persistently full blocks eyt, though. So that's why it hasn't happened yet.
Personally, I agree with you that the block size limit will at some point be increased. Either that comes about, or BTC loses use case after use case to more capable blockchains.
However, my observation is that such an increase will be too little too late. How long do you think it will take to overcome the inertia already nurtured within the community -- who have been taught that large blocks are a detriment -- to accept the inevitability of such larger blocks? And after that, how long will it take to push out such a change? And preceding the above, how long will it take for the devs to lose their blinders on the topic, especially having to publicly admit they were wrong about the need to keep blocks small?
Besides, daily use of LN for a vast majority of transactions might make it less necessary to open and close channels frequently. And bulk channel openings have been in development for a while already. Some are well past the proof of concept stage (alpha,beta, testnet? I'm not up to date on that ATM).
We were all supposed to be routinely using LN 'in six months' two years ago. Again, too little, too late.
N ot to mention the fact that
persistently full blocks breaks lightning.
Schnorr sigs are coming. They improve on-chain privacy, save block space, and they will make coinjoin-like transactions easier - including aggregation of LN channel open/close operations.
A viable small scaling solution that will be routine sometime in the next four to six years.
All this might not amount to a detailed plan, but it does look like a friggin' good approximation in my opinion.
It ain't even an
approximation of a plan until it has been clearly articulated and absorbed by the bulk of the community. When do you suppose the next FOMO spike ends up forcing the community's hand?