
The Bitcoin Roundtable Consensus Proposal – Too Little, Too Late - Kinnard
https://medium.com/@barmstrong/the-bitcoin-roundtable-consensus-proposal-too-little-too-late-e694f13f40b
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iwwr
Does anyone have a start-to-finish recap of this whole debate? It's difficult
to understand for people without the adequate context.

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Obi_Juan_Kenobi
This article is reasonable and discusses many of the issues at play:

[http://www.coindesk.com/making-sense-block-size-debate-
bitco...](http://www.coindesk.com/making-sense-block-size-debate-bitcoin/)

Ultimately, you have to understand Bitcoin, and what it could be, to
understand the debate, and I really don't think that's an exaggeration. This
debate is so complicated and so vitriolic because it gets at the core of what
the technology will become, and how that future will come about.

Some of the key issues at play:

* Is BTC more like digital gold, a settlement layer, a payment processor, or some combination of all of those things? For a given goal, what would an effective implementation look like?

* Small blocks allow for fewer transactions, but have very modest network and hardware requirements. Bigger blocks permit more transactions, but could encourage centralization as technical requirements increase by incentivizing co-localization of mining (e.g. behind Chinese firewall), discouraging node operation, etc. What is the right trade-off?

* Transactions aren't free. Limiting the network can create a fee market, but high throughput with low fees could also fund mining after block rewards.

* Who decides? Do we seek user consensus (miners? node operators? protocol devs?)? Is a competitive market for protocol implementations part of Satoshi's vision?

There's so much ideology tied up in Bitcoin that it becomes very difficult;
different people want fundamentally different things. A conservative approach
might be to leave Bitcoin much as it is, and tie in new protocols on top of it
(sidechains, lightning network, etc.). Others feel that 'what they signed on
for' is different, citing Satoshi's remarks about how the network would scale
and how hard forks would create economic consensus.

What I find heartening is that even the threat of alternative implementations
(XT, Classic, etc.) seem to be having an effect on the Core team. We're seeing
a market for ideas, and the technical reality that a simple majority can take
control, or else split the coin. Some people find this worrying (and certainly
this is warranted), but I want to see it tested; dash it against the rocks and
see how strong Bitcoin is.

At any rate, the transaction rate continues to increase, so the issue is
approaching a resolution one way or another.

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TheBlight
Excellent summary. Conflicting business interests are probably playing a non-
trivial role in the acrimony as well, e.g. limiting the block size makes
solutions from businesses like Blockstream a bit more compelling whereas
businesses like Coinbase and Bitpay would probably like to see many many more
cheap transactions on-chain sooner vs. later.

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kordless
> That solution was written and reviewed by two former core devs (including
> the former lead of the project) so I believe it is a high quality option.

I assume this is a reference to Satoshi. If this is such a big deal, why not
pony out Satoshi to share his opinion?

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toomim
He's referring to Gavin.

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kordless
I have no idea if he is or isn't, frankly. And, apparently, having an
assumption on HN is now worthy of downvotes.

<goes off and randomly downvotes people for assumptions>

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IkmoIkmo
Satoshi hasn't been known to have uttered a single word since 2010 and thus it
can't have referred to Satoshi. Further the idea that one can simply ask
Satoshi for his opinion, when he's disappeared for more than half a decade is
also quite silly, unless you're completely uninvolved in bitcoin any know next
to nothing about it. I assume that's why you were downvoted, because your
suggestion adds nothing meaningful to the discussion and shows you lack some
basic topic-specific knowledge and so it makes sense for your post to be less
visible.

At least that's my assumption, I didn't downvote.

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kordless
Satoshi is believed to have said something in 2014 regarding Dorian [1]. It
would be reasonable for someone in the community to reach out to him and ask
what he thinks. While they are at it, they should ask him about hard fork
avoidance too.

Back to the point at hand, I still have no idea who Brian is talking about in
his post. And, if one were to think about that in an uninvolved and
meaningless way, perhaps it might add to the discussion.

[1] [http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-
sour...](http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-
source?commentId=2003008%3AComment%3A52186&xg_source=activity)

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IkmoIkmo
Nobody really believes that was him, all it takes is a forged email to write
that.

People reach out to him every day and he hasn't responded in half a decade.

And he's referring to Gavin (former lead) and Garzik. Look it up if you want.

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trevelyan
You can almost hear the beeping noises as they back the truck up to block the
exponential growth curve.

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SkyMarshal
If only that were the biggest problem. A far bigger one is big blockers
wanting to expose Bitcoin to increased risk of catastrophic ruin at the
protocol level to service the more expedient commercial concerns of a few big
businesses that have bet their future on no/low tx fees.

Bitcoin is not a payment network, it is digital gold, and any attempt to make
it competitive with Visa, Paypal, or Western Union puts the whole project at
greater risk of failure. A $10 or similarly large fee to move gold around the
world instantaneously is miniscule for the value conferred, especially when
that digital gold can reliably serve as an alternative global reserve
currently roughly as viable as the USD but with no central issuing authority.
That kind of value is not cheap, easy, or free, and cannot be achieved while
also compromising its design parameters in favor of expedient commercial
concerns.

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TheBlight
Yeah, interesting attempt at revising history there but the title of the email
which debuted Bitcoin to the world was titled: "Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper." It
was _designed_ to eventually compete with Visa, Paypal, etc. See also:
[http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/](http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/)

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brighton36
The bitcoin blockchain simply won't do that. Lightning network might. Satoshi
was a brilliant guy, but got a number of things wrong as well. (Namecoin for
example)

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brighton36
Brian is sounding so desperate lately. His opinion here just doesn't matter
very much as the blocks belong to miners, not him. Frankly I'm encouraging
everyone to pull their money out of coinbase right now, as the risk of a Brian
-induced fork is non trivial, and his custody of your coins is probably not a
risk you should bear

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TheBlight
This is FUD. You contradict yourself with your own statement. If any fork
happens it would require a super-majority of hash power to support it -- the
fork would be considered canonical Bitcoin and there would be no problem and
no loss of funds. It's even questionable calling it a "fork" as there really
wouldn't be a material side-branch.

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brighton36
Seems like you agree that the miners are in charge here. You read the Bram
Cohen criticisms of classic vs core coin?

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Kinnard
Post it.

