

Bitcoin faces a crossroads, needs an effective decision-making process - notsony
https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/randomwalker/bitcoin-faces-a-crossroads-needs-an-effective-decision-making-process/

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xiphias
The blocksize debate asks the wrong question: not whether the blocksize should
be increased, but more like what are the steps to do to make sure that the
blocksize increase is as safe as possible: decreasing the header sizes,
improving DOS attacks, synchronization between nodes are more important then
the 15-liner that just increases the maximum block size.

~~~
PierreRochard
Those are the technical questions. The big picture economic question is, how
does bitcoin mining transition from block reward revenue to transaction fee
revenue ( see
[http://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/#selection-185.5-185.39...](http://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/#selection-185.5-185.396)
). Discussion with Gavin on this subject here:
[http://bitstein.org/blog/pierre-rochard-and-gavin-
andresen-d...](http://bitstein.org/blog/pierre-rochard-and-gavin-andresen-
discuss-the-block-size-limit/)

~~~
nosuchthing
The greater issue of BTC is the odds between hording speculators who "believe"
the "rarity" of Bitcoin will increase the market price. Currency should be
predictably stable as a medium to facilitate exchange of other goods and
services. Currency should also be encouraged to recirculate back into the
economy, rather than sit around doing nothing.

There's also a huge issue of people dedicating effort to form price
manipulator syndicates and HFT bots within the cryptocoin communities [1]

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7126153](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7126153)

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Animats
The free market will solve the problem. If and when the blockchain runs out of
capacity, only the transactions with higher transaction fees get through.
Transaction fees will rise accordingly, and small transactions will become
uneconomic.

Bitcoin transaction volume in dollars is flat.[1] It hasn't grown in the last
year; it's declined slightly.

[1] [https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-
volume-...](https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd)

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drcode
I would argue though that the recently controversy is an illustration of "the
arguments are so contentious because the stakes are so small". In all of the
recent debates there have been smart people arguing that "leaving things as
is" is an acceptable course of action.

In the past, when there was an objectively clear problem, the community always
quickly rallied around a fix.

~~~
TylerE
How is being unable to scale past an essentially irrelevant (globally) # of
transactions "small stakes"?

~~~
drcode
Whether the block size is 1MB or 10MB in May of 2015 is "small stakes"... in
May of 2018 (or whatever) the stakes might be larger.

Also, there's alternative approaches (payment channels, lightning networks,
etc) for handling smaller transactions that may prove viable in the near
future.

(To repeat: I'm not saying I'm against larger blocks, only that there's still
smart people defending both sides of the argument at the moment, and that's
why a stalemate has formed.)

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grhmc
Let's just use the block-chain for decision making!

edit: I was probably trolling.

~~~
socrates1024
Yes! See suggestion #2 in the article. The block-chain is a great tool for
decision making, since it makes it possible to get a transparent, permanent,
public log of all the comments and opinions that go into the decision. So far,
in-blockchain voting has been used for soft-forks, but it could be used more
frequently and less urgently too.

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wmf
I thought the spirit of Bitcoin is that it is governed only by algorithms. If
Bitcoin needs massive proof of work and human governance, that reduces its
value significantly IMO.

~~~
socrates1024
Well, that has never been the case. The algorithm of the network is defined by
the most widely used implementations, which so far has continued to be Bitcoin
Core. Bitcoin Core is maintained by a group of humans, who use some form of
decision making process (whether it be implicit or explicit). The more
effective that decision making process is, the more reliable and durable the
system will be.

