<div dir="ltr">tell that to people in poor countries, or even in first world countries. The competitive thing here is a deal breaker for a lot of people who have no clue/don't care for decentralization, they just want to send money from A to B, like email.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><a href="http://twitter.com/gubatron" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/gubatron</a><br></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 5:23 PM, Adam Back via bitcoin-dev <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org" target="_blank">bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">I dont think Bitcoin being cheaper is the main characteristic of<br>
Bitcoin. I think the interesting thing is trustlessness - being able<br>
to transact without relying on third parties.<br>
<br>
Adam<br>
<br>
<br>
On 11 August 2015 at 22:18, Michael Naber via bitcoin-dev<br>
<<a href="mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org">bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org</a>> wrote:<br>
> The only reason why Bitcoin has grown the way it has, and in fact the only<br>
> reason why we're all even here on this mailing list talking about this, is<br>
> because Bitcoin is growing, since it's "better money than other money". One<br>
> of the key characteristics toward that is Bitcoin being inexpensive to<br>
> transact. If that characteristic is no longer true, then Bitcoin isn't going<br>
> to grow, and in fact Bitcoin itself will be replaced by better money that is<br>
> less expensive to transfer.<br>
><br>
> So the importance of this issue cannot be overstated -- it's compete or die<br>
> for Bitcoin -- because people want to transact with global consensus at high<br>
> volume, and because technology exists to service that want, then it's going<br>
> to be met. This is basic rules of demand and supply. I don't necessarily<br>
> disagree with your position on only wanting to support uncontroversial<br>
> commits, but I think it's important to get consensus on the criticality of<br>
> the block size issue: do you agree, disagree, or not take a side, and why?<br>
><br>
><br>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 2:51 PM, Pieter Wuille <<a href="mailto:pieter.wuille@gmail.com">pieter.wuille@gmail.com</a>><br>
> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 9:37 PM, Michael Naber via bitcoin-dev<br>
>> <<a href="mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org">bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org</a>> wrote:<br>
>>><br>
>>> Hitting the limit in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. The<br>
>>> question at hand is whether we should constrain that limit below what<br>
>>> technology is capable of delivering. I'm arguing that not only we should<br>
>>> not, but that we could not even if we wanted to, since competition will<br>
>>> deliver capacity for global consensus whether it's in Bitcoin or in some<br>
>>> other product / fork.<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> The question is not what the technology can deliver. The question is what<br>
>> price we're willing to pay for that. It is not a boolean "at this size,<br>
>> things break, and below it, they work". A small constant factor increase<br>
>> will unlikely break anything in the short term, but it will come with higher<br>
>> centralization pressure of various forms. There is discussion about whether<br>
>> these centralization pressures are significant, but citing that it's<br>
>> artificially constrained under the limit is IMHO a misrepresentation. It is<br>
>> constrained to aim for a certain balance between utility and risk, and<br>
>> neither extreme is interesting, while possibly still "working".<br>
>><br>
>> Consensus rules are what keeps the system together. You can't simply<br>
>> switch to new rules on your own, because the rest of the system will end up<br>
>> ignoring you. These rules are there for a reason. You and I may agree about<br>
>> whether the 21M limit is necessary, and disagree about whether we need a<br>
>> block size limit, but we should be extremely careful with change. My<br>
>> position as Bitcoin Core developer is that we should merge consensus changes<br>
>> only when they are uncontroversial. Even when you believe a more invasive<br>
>> change is worth it, others may disagree, and the risk from disagreement is<br>
>> likely larger than the effect of a small block size increase by itself: the<br>
>> risk that suddenly every transaction can be spent twice (once on each side<br>
>> of the fork), the very thing that the block chain was designed to prevent.<br>
>><br>
>> My personal opinion is that we should aim to do a block size increase for<br>
>> the right reasons. I don't think fear of rising fees or unreliability should<br>
>> be an issue: if fees are being paid, it means someone is willing to pay<br>
>> them. If people are doing transactions despite being unreliable, there must<br>
>> be a use for them. That may mean that some use cases don't fit anymore, but<br>
>> that is already the case.<br>
>><br>
>> --<br>
>> Pieter<br>
>><br>
><br>
><br>
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</blockquote></div><br></div>