Re: Proposed alternatives to the 20MB step

Re: Proposed alternatives to the 20MB step
2015-06-01 13:00 ` Adam Back
                   ` (2 more replies)
  
From: Jérôme Legoupil @ 2015-06-01 12:45 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: bitcoin-development

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>What do other people think?
>
>
>If we can't come to an agreement soon, then I'll ask for help
>reviewing/submitting patches to Mike's Bitcoin-Xt project that implement a
>big increase now that grows over time so we may never have to go through
>all this rancor and debate again."
>
>
>I'll then ask for help lobbying the merchant services and exchanges and
>hosted wallet companies and other bitcoind-using-infrastructure companies


It's surprising to see a core dev going to the public to defend a proposal
most other core devs disagree on, and then lobbying the Bitcoin ecosystem.

This is an very unhealthy way to go because it incentives the other core
devs to stop their technical work and go public and lobby too (cf G.Maxwell
trying to raise redditters awareness).

We need core devs to work on technical issues, not waste time doing
politics, but Gavin's confrontational approach doesn't give them much of a
choice.

I fear that because of this approach, in the next monthes, core devs with
be lobbying and doing politics : precious time will be wasted for everyone
having stake in Bitcoin.


Regarding the 20MB proposal content:

Decentralization is the core of Bitcoin's security model and thus that's
what gives Bitcoin its value.

The danger is that decentralization tends naturally towards centralization,
because centralization is more efficient. Going from decentralization to
centralization is easy, going the other way is a lot harder :
decentralization we lose, may never be gained back.

Regarding "the urgency to do something":

I believe it would be extremely healthy for the network to bump into any
limit ASAP ... (let it be 1MB) : to incentive layer 2 and offchain
solutions to scale Bitcoin : there are promising designs/solutions out
there (LN, ChainDB, OtherCoin protocole, ...), but most don't get much
attention, because there is right now no need for them. And, I am sure new
solutions will be invented.

If during the "1MB bumpy period" something goes wrong, consensus among the
community would be reached easily if necessary.

Pretending there is urgency and that Apocalypse is approaching is a fallacy.

The Gavin 20MB proposal is compromising Bitcoin's long-term security in an
irreversible way, for gaining short-term better user experience.

I oppose the Gavin proposal in both content and form.

Cheers,
Jerome

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2015-06-01 13:00 ` 
                   ` 
  
From: Jérôme Legoupil @ 2015-06-01 12:45 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: bitcoin-development

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>What do other people think?
>
>
>If we can't come to an agreement soon, then I'll ask for help
>reviewing/submitting patches to Mike's Bitcoin-Xt project that implement a
>big increase now that grows over time so we may never have to go through
>all this rancor and debate again."
>
>
>I'll then ask for help lobbying the merchant services and exchanges and
>hosted wallet companies and other bitcoind-using-infrastructure companies


It's surprising to see a core dev going to the public to defend a proposal
most other core devs disagree on, and then lobbying the Bitcoin ecosystem.

This is an very unhealthy way to go because it incentives the other core
devs to stop their technical work and go public and lobby too (cf G.Maxwell
trying to raise redditters awareness).

We need core devs to work on technical issues, not waste time doing
politics, but Gavin's confrontational approach doesn't give them much of a
choice.

I fear that because of this approach, in the next monthes, core devs with
be lobbying and doing politics : precious time will be wasted for everyone
having stake in Bitcoin.


Regarding the 20MB proposal content:

Decentralization is the core of Bitcoin's security model and thus that's
what gives Bitcoin its value.

The danger is that decentralization tends naturally towards centralization,
because centralization is more efficient. Going from decentralization to
centralization is easy, going the other way is a lot harder :
decentralization we lose, may never be gained back.

Regarding "the urgency to do something":

I believe it would be extremely healthy for the network to bump into any
limit ASAP ... (let it be 1MB) : to incentive layer 2 and offchain
solutions to scale Bitcoin : there are promising designs/solutions out
there (LN, ChainDB, OtherCoin protocole, ...), but most don't get much
attention, because there is right now no need for them. And, I am sure new
solutions will be invented.

If during the "1MB bumpy period" something goes wrong, consensus among the
community would be reached easily if necessary.

Pretending there is urgency and that Apocalypse is approaching is a fallacy.

The Gavin 20MB proposal is compromising Bitcoin's long-term security in an
irreversible way, for gaining short-term better user experience.

I oppose the Gavin proposal in both content and form.

Cheers,
Jerome

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2015-06-01 12:45 [Bitcoin-development] Proposed alternatives to the 20MB step Jérôme Legoupil
  2015-06-01 13:00 ` Adam Back

  2015-06-01 15:55 ` Mike Hearn
  
From: Gavin Andresen @ 2015-06-01 13:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jérôme Legoupil;  Bitcoin Dev

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RE: going to the public:

I started pushing privately for SOMETHING, ANYTHING to be done, or at the
very least for there to be some coherent plan besides "wait and see" back
in February.

As for it being unhealthy for me to write the code that I think should be
written and asking people to run it:

Ok. What would you suggest I do? I believe scaling up is the number one
priority right now. I think core devs SHOULD be taking time to solve it,
because I think the uncertainty of how it will be solved (or if it will be
solved) is bad for Bitcoin.

I think working on things like fixing transaction malleability is great...
but the reason to work on that is to enable smart contracts and all sorts
of other interesting new uses of the blockchain. But if we're stuck with
1MB blocks then there won't be room for all of those interesting new uses
on the blockchain.

Others disagree, and have the advantage of status-quo : if nothing is done,
they get what they want.

Based on some comments I've seen, I think there is also concern that "my
own personal network/computer connection might not be able to handle more
transaction volume." That is NOT a good reason to limit scalability, but I
think it is clouding the judgement of many of the core contributors who
started contributing as a spare-time hobby from their homes (where maybe
they have crappy DSL connections).


RE: decentralization:

I think this is a red-herring. I'll quote something I said on reddit
yesterday:

"I don't believe a 20MB max size will increase centralization to any
significant degree.

See
http://gavinandresen.ninja/does-more-transactions-necessarily-mean-more-centralized

and http://gavinandresen.ninja/are-bigger-blocks-better-for-bigger-miners

And I think we will have a lot LESS centralization of payments via services
like Coinbase (or hubs in some future StrawPay/Lightning network) if the
bitcoin network can directly handle more payment volume.

The centralization trade-offs seems very clear to me, and I think the "big
blocks mean more centralized" arguments are either just wrong or are
exaggerated or ignore the tradeoff with payment centralization (I think
that is a lot more important for privacy and censorship resistance)."


RE: incentives for off-chain solutions:

I'll quote myself again from
http://gavinandresen.ninja/it-must-be-done-but-is-not-a-panacea :

"The “layer 2” services that are being built on top of the blockchain are
absolutely necessary to get nearly instant real-time payments,
micropayments and high volume machine-to-machine payments, to pick just
three examples. The ten-minute settlement time of blocks on the network is
not fast enough for those problems, and it will be the ten minute block
interval that drives development of those off-chain innovations more than
the total number of transactions supported."

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 8:45 AM, Jérôme Legoupil <jjlegoupil@gmail•com>
wrote:

> If during the "1MB bumpy period" something goes wrong, consensus among the
> community would be reached easily if necessary.
>

That is the problem: this will be a "frog in boiling water" problem. I
believe there will be no sudden crisis-- instead, transactions will just
get increasingly unreliable and expensive, driving more and more people
away from Bitcoin towards... I don't know what. Some less expensive, more
reliable, probably more-centralized solution.

The Gavin 20MB proposal is compromising Bitcoin's long-term security in an
> irreversible way, for gaining short-term better user experience.
>

If by long-term security you mean "will transaction fees be high enough to
pay for enough hashing power to secure the network if there are bigger
blocks" I've written about that:
http://gavinandresen.ninja/block-size-and-miner-fees-again


If you mean something else, then please be specific.

-- 
--
Gavin Andresen

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2015-06-01 12:45 [Bitcoin-development] Proposed alternatives to the 20MB step Jérôme Legoupil
  2015-06-01 13:00 ` Adam Back
  2015-06-01 13:37 ` Gavin Andresen

  2015-06-01 16:41   ` Jameson Lopp
  2015-06-02  0:09   ` Eric Voskuil
  
From: Mike Hearn @ 2015-06-01 15:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jérôme Legoupil;  Bitcoin Dev

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>
> It's surprising to see a core dev going to the public to defend a proposal
> most other core devs disagree on, and then lobbying the Bitcoin ecosystem.
>

I agree that it is a waste of time. Many agree. The Bitcoin ecosystem
doesn't really need lobbying - my experience from talking to businesses and
wallet developers months ago is they virtually all see raising capacity as
a no brainer ... and some of them see this "debate" as despair-inducing
insanity.

What's happened here is that a small number of people have come to believe
they have veto power over changes to Bitcoin, and they have also become
*wildly* out of step with what the wider community wants. That cannot last.
So, short of some sudden change of heart that lets us kick the can down the
road a bit longer, a fork is inevitable.

Just be glad it's Gavin driving this and not me ... or a faceless coalition
of startups.


> Decentralization is the core of Bitcoin's security model and thus that's
> what gives Bitcoin its value.
>

No. Usage is what gives Bitcoin value.

It's kind of maddening that I have to point this out. Decentralisation is a
means to an end. I first used Bitcoin in April 2009 and it was perfectly
decentralised back then: every wallet was a full node and every computer
was capable of mining.

So if you believe what you just wrote, I guess Bitcoin's value has gone
down every day since.

On the other hand, if you believe the markets, Bitcoin's value has gone up.

Apparently the question of what gives Bitcoin its value is a bit more
complicated than that.




> : to incentive layer 2 and offchain solutions to scale Bitcoin : there are
> promising designs/solutions out there (LN, ChainDB, OtherCoin protocole,
> ...), but most don't get much attention, because there is right now no need
> for them. And, I am sure new solutions will be invented.
>

I have seen this notion a few times. I would like to dispose of it right
now.

I am one of the wallet developers you would be trying to "incentivise" by
letting Bitcoin break, and I say: get real. Developers are not some
bottomless fountain of work that will spit out whatever you like for free
if you twist their arms badly enough.

The problems that incentivised the creation of Bitcoin existed for decades
before Bitcoin was actually invented. Incentives are not enough. Someone
has to actually do the work, too. All proposals on the table would:

   - Involve enormous amounts of effort from many different people
   - Be technically risky (read: we don't know if they would even work)
   - Not be Bitcoin

The last point is important: people who got interested in Bitcoin and
decided to devote their time to it might not feel the same way about some
network of payment hubs or whatever today's fashion is. Faced with their
work being broken by armchair developers on some mailing list, they might
just say screw it and walk away completely.

After all, as the arguments for these systems are not particularly logical,
they might slave over hot keyboards for a year to support the Lightning
Network or whatever and then discover that it's no longer the fashionable
thing ... and that suddenly an even more convoluted design is being
"incentivised".

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2015-06-01 15:55 ` Mike Hearn

  2015-06-02  0:09   ` Eric Voskuil
  
From: Jameson Lopp @ 2015-06-01 16:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Mike Hearn;  Bitcoin Dev, Jérôme Legoupil

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The overlapping consensus mechanisms between the Core Developers, the
miners, the block chain based businesses, and the end users make it such
that the very definition of Bitcoin is not just what any single one of
those groups comes to a consensus about. We must ALL be in consensus about
just what Bitcoin actually is and what its goals should be. As such, the
onus is on the Core Developers to convince the other groups to either
accept or reject major changes to the protocol.

Greg made a great point regarding the difficulty in determining the
definition of Bitcoin:
https://twitter.com/lopp/status/596135982539395073/photo/1

My point being that Bitcoin is inherently a political phenomenon; we're
just trying to describe the human politics behind Bitcoin with computer
code that is reasonably secure against attack.

- Jameson

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 8:55 AM, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99•net> wrote:

> It's surprising to see a core dev going to the public to defend a proposal
>> most other core devs disagree on, and then lobbying the Bitcoin ecosystem.
>>
>
> I agree that it is a waste of time. Many agree. The Bitcoin ecosystem
> doesn't really need lobbying - my experience from talking to businesses and
> wallet developers months ago is they virtually all see raising capacity as
> a no brainer ... and some of them see this "debate" as despair-inducing
> insanity.
>
> What's happened here is that a small number of people have come to believe
> they have veto power over changes to Bitcoin, and they have also become
> *wildly* out of step with what the wider community wants. That cannot
> last. So, short of some sudden change of heart that lets us kick the can
> down the road a bit longer, a fork is inevitable.
>
> Just be glad it's Gavin driving this and not me ... or a faceless
> coalition of startups.
>
>
>> Decentralization is the core of Bitcoin's security model and thus that's
>> what gives Bitcoin its value.
>>
>
> No. Usage is what gives Bitcoin value.
>
> It's kind of maddening that I have to point this out. Decentralisation is
> a means to an end. I first used Bitcoin in April 2009 and it was perfectly
> decentralised back then: every wallet was a full node and every computer
> was capable of mining.
>
> So if you believe what you just wrote, I guess Bitcoin's value has gone
> down every day since.
>
> On the other hand, if you believe the markets, Bitcoin's value has gone up.
>
> Apparently the question of what gives Bitcoin its value is a bit more
> complicated than that.
>
>
>
>
>> : to incentive layer 2 and offchain solutions to scale Bitcoin : there
>> are promising designs/solutions out there (LN, ChainDB, OtherCoin
>> protocole, ...), but most don't get much attention, because there is right
>> now no need for them. And, I am sure new solutions will be invented.
>>
>
> I have seen this notion a few times. I would like to dispose of it right
> now.
>
> I am one of the wallet developers you would be trying to "incentivise" by
> letting Bitcoin break, and I say: get real. Developers are not some
> bottomless fountain of work that will spit out whatever you like for free
> if you twist their arms badly enough.
>
> The problems that incentivised the creation of Bitcoin existed for decades
> before Bitcoin was actually invented. Incentives are not enough. Someone
> has to actually do the work, too. All proposals on the table would:
>
>    - Involve enormous amounts of effort from many different people
>    - Be technically risky (read: we don't know if they would even work)
>    - Not be Bitcoin
>
> The last point is important: people who got interested in Bitcoin and
> decided to devote their time to it might not feel the same way about some
> network of payment hubs or whatever today's fashion is. Faced with their
> work being broken by armchair developers on some mailing list, they might
> just say screw it and walk away completely.
>
> After all, as the arguments for these systems are not particularly
> logical, they might slave over hot keyboards for a year to support the
> Lightning Network or whatever and then discover that it's no longer the
> fashionable thing ... and that suddenly an even more convoluted design is
> being "incentivised".
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> Bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>

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2015-06-01 15:55 ` Mike Hearn
  2015-06-01 16:41   ` Jameson Lopp

  2015-06-02 11:03     ` Mike Hearn
  
From: Eric Voskuil @ 2015-06-02  0:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Mike Hearn, Jérôme Legoupil;  Bitcoin Dev

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On 06/01/2015 08:55 AM, Mike Hearn wrote:
>> Decentralization is the core of Bitcoin's security model and thus
that's what gives Bitcoin its value.
> No. Usage is what gives Bitcoin value.

Nonsense.

Visa, Dollar, Euro, Yuan, Peso have usage.

The value in Bitcoin is *despite* it's far lesser usage.

Yes, the price is a function of demand, but demand is a function of
utility. Despite orders of magnitude less usage than state currencies,
Bitcoin has utility. This premium *only* exists due to its lack of
centralized control. I would not work full time, or at all, on Bitcoin
if it was not for decentralization; nor would I hold any of it. I doubt
anyone would show an interest in Bitcoin if it was not decentralized. If
it centralized even you would be forced to find something else to do,
because Bitcoin "usage" would drop to zero.

> It's kind of maddening that I have to point this out. Decentralisation
is a means to an end.

No, it was/is the primary objective. Paypal had already been done. If
anything is maddening it's that you of all people can't see this. When
people talk about the core innovation of Bitcoin, it's a conversation
about Byzantine Generals, not wicked growth hacking.

> in April 2009 and it was perfectly decentralised [...] every wallet
was a full node and every computer was capable of mining. So if you
believe what you just wrote [...] Bitcoin's value has gone down every
day since

An obvious non sequitur. By way of example, if 10 of 10 participants are
capable of mining it is not more decentralized than if 1,000 in 100,000
are doing so. 1,000 *people* in control vs. 10 is two orders of
magnitude more decentralized. The *percentage* of the community that
mines is totally irrelevant, it's the absolute number of (independent)
people that matters.

I'm not making a statement on block size, just trying to help ensure
that ill-considered ideas, like this inversion of the core value
proposition, stay on the margins.

e





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2015-06-02  0:09   ` Eric Voskuil

  2015-06-02 16:18       ` Eric Voskuil
  2015-06-13  6:05       ` odinn
  
From: Mike Hearn @ 2015-06-02 11:03 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Eric Voskuil;  Bitcoin Dev, Jérôme Legoupil

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>
>  1,000 *people* in control vs. 10 is two orders of

magnitude more decentralized.


Yet Bitcoin has got worse by all these metrics: there was a time before
mining pools when there were ~thousands of people mining with their local
CPUs and GPUs. Now the number of full nodes that matter for block selection
number in the dozens, and all the other miners just follow their blocks
blindly.

If you really believe that decentralisation is, itself, the end, then why
not go use an "ASIC resistant" alt coin with no SPV or web wallets which
resembles Bitcoin at the end of 2009? That'd be a whole lot more
decentralised than what you have now.

The *percentage* of the community that mines is totally irrelevant, it's
> the absolute number of (independent) people that matters.
>

So usage does matter, then? You'd rather have a coin that has power
concentrated in a far smaller elite, proportionally, but has overall more
usage? If there are say, 5000 full nodes today, and in ten years there are
6000, and they all run in vast datacenters and are owned by large
companies, you'll feel like Bitcoin is more decentralised than ever?
(n.b. I do not think this situation will ever happen, it's just an example).

That's not the vibe I'm getting from most people on this list. What I'm
seeing is complaints about how in the good old days back when Core was the
only wallet and ASICs hadn't been made,  there were lots of nodes and lots
of people mining solo and since then it's all been downhill and woe is us
... and let's throw on the brakes in case it gets worse.

Not for the first time, these discussions remind me very strongly of the
old desktop Linux/free software debates.

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2015-06-02 11:03     ` Mike Hearn

  2015-06-13  6:05       ` odinn
  
From: Eric Voskuil @ 2015-06-02 16:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Mike Hearn;  Bitcoin Dev


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On 06/02/2015 04:03 AM, Mike Hearn wrote:
>
>      1,000 *people* in control vs. 10 is two orders of
>
>     magnitude more decentralized. 
>
>
> Yet Bitcoin has got worse by all these metrics: there was a time
> before mining pools when there were ~thousands of people mining with
> their local CPUs and GPUs. Now the number of full nodes that matter
> for block selection number in the dozens, and all the other miners
> just follow their blocks blindly.

A mining pool is not a person, a full node is not a miner, and
cooperation is not control.

http://bravenewcoin.com/news/number-of-bitcoin-miners-far-higher-than-popular-estimates/

The entire Bitcoin ecosystem cooperates, that is what consensus means.
Establishing proof of that cooperation is the purpose of Bitcoin.

Decentralization is about keeping control out of the hands of the state
(any entity that would substitute violence for consensus). Nobody has
the power to compel the cooperation of individual miners in a pool. When
state power is applied to a pool operator the miners (people) retain
their vote.

e


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2015-06-02 11:03     ` Mike Hearn
  2015-06-02 16:18       ` Eric Voskuil

  
From: odinn @ 2015-06-13  6:05 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: bitcoin-development

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Hash: SHA1



On 06/02/2015 04:03 AM, Mike Hearn wrote:
(...)
> 
> If you really believe that decentralisation is, itself, the end,
> then why not go use an "ASIC resistant" alt coin with no SPV or web
> wallets which resembles Bitcoin at the end of 2009? That'd be a
> whole lot more decentralised than what you have now.
> 
> The *percentage* of the community that mines is totally
> irrelevant, it's the absolute number of (independent) people that
> matters.
> 
> 
> So usage does matter, then? You'd rather have a coin that has
> power concentrated in a far smaller elite, proportionally, but has
> overall more usage? If there are say, 5000 full nodes today, and in
> ten years there are 6000, and they all run in vast datacenters and
> are owned by large companies, you'll feel like Bitcoin is more
> decentralised than ever?   (n.b. I do not think this situation will
> ever happen, it's just an example).
> 

Something you said about "power concentrated," made me think I should
post this here:

https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/608920099609817088

- -- 
http://abis.io ~
"a protocol concept to enable decentralization
and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
https://keybase.io/odinn
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