Quote from: LaudaM on August 07, 2014, 07:06:20 PM

Quote from: fluffypony on August 07, 2014, 06:52:47 PM

Quote from: DannyElfman on August 07, 2014, 05:10:18 PM

Imagine 2 blockchains processing the same amount of transcations. Now Chain 1 is running with ringsignatures and Chain 2 is not.

Now lets say that every year 500 GB of transaction data gets produced and no blockchain pruning and shrinking is available.
After 1/2/3/4/5 years
Chain 1: 750GB/1.5 TB/2.25TB/3TB/3.75TB
Chain 2: 500GB/1TB/1.5TB/2TB/2.5 TB

And this is under the best case scenario that ringsignatures only produce 50% bigger tx. This number can be higher!

-snip-
Will a 110gb blockchain on full nodes really matter by 2019, when everyone is sporting 40tb drives? By direct comparison: Bitcoin's blockchain takes up 0.5% of today's 4tb drives, and comparably Monero would take up 0.275% of 2019's 40tb drives. In other words, disk space and Internet capacity is rapidly outstripping potential blockchain growth.

Ring signatures provide cryptographically untraceable and unlinkable transactions for a small sacrifice in blockchain storage in a world where disk space is not at a premium.

Sorry to spoil it for you, but most people do not have money to afford a 1TB thumb drive nor a 6TB HDD. In my country I rarely see people who have a 1TB HDD or higher (excluding myself). How do you plan to have a wider adoption? Although you never know, we might have 40TB drives we might still be stuck with the current limitations (look at batteries - minor/none improvement for years).
There are other ways to provide untraceable and unlinkable transactions. While ring signatures might bloat the blockchain a bit, they could do for now I guess.

Don't worry, you haven't spoiled anything. I live in South Africa, I know exactly what most people can afford more than most people here.

The "most people" you refer to will use a web wallet or an SPV-style wallet, regardless of the disk space they can afford. Full nodes for Bitcoin (and in future for Monero) are only run by crypto enthusiasts or companies who have a vested interest in doing so...and both groups of people can and do own sufficient storage space even at this very moment to soak up a 110gb blockchain.

To your last point, currently the only other way to provide cryptographically untraceable and unlinkable transactions is ZeroCash, which has been discussed at length and has drawbacks of its own (eg. the accumulator creation event trust issue). All the other methods that exist add layers of obfuscation, but do not provide cryptographically untraceable and unlinkable transactions.