[bitcoin-dev] Why Satoshi's temporary anti-spam measure isn't temporary

Gavin gavinandresen at gmail.com
Thu Jul 30 12:29:49 UTC 2015



> On Jul 30, 2015, at 4:21 AM, Eric Lombrozo wrote:
> 
> and a number of the people most intimately familiar with the inner workings of the system (some of whom are in this thread) think that given what we now today about the Bitcoin network, increasing block size externalizes costs in dangerous ways. Remember that total cost includes not just equipment costs but also things like block propagation latency and specifically identified security risks. Some of these security risks were only appreciated relatively recently and were completely unknown in 2009.

I would like (and have been asking) those people to take the time to quantify those costs and write up those risks in a careful way.

I believe the costs and risks of 8MB blocks are minimal, and that the benefits of supporting more transaction FAR outweigh those costs and risks, but it is hard to have a rational conversation about that when even simple questions like 'what is s reasonable cost to run a full node' are met with silence.


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