@jonny1000 claiming the 1mb rule is a fundamental part of the 'golden rules' which guide the bitcoin protocol is ridiculous.
I am not claiming the 1MB is a fundamental rule, or a golden rule. I am merely aserting a fact, which is that the 1MB limit is an ACTUAL rule.
If SW was not contentious, then Blockstream Core's intention was simply to persuade the miners not to run Classic, ever.
It is not Blockstream or Core, it was simply the people present at the meeting. The people present acted in a way that many members of both Blockstream and the Core team were extremely unhappy with and did not approve of. It is true the intention of the developers present was to prevent miners running Classic.
So what had Blockstream Core tried offering the miners before conceding the HF?
The offering of the hardfork happened early on. The discussion then focused on the language of the hardfork, for example should it say “around” 2MB, “effectively” 8MB, “greater than” 2MB, 2MB or “at least” 1.8MB.
no wonder Core see every competing implementation as a threat
It is clear Blockstream Core are determined above all to maintain control of the reference bitcoin client
That is not true at all, this issue is about preventing a hardfork without strong consensus. In my eyes, and the eyes of other small blockers, that issue is entirely orthogonal to control of the development of the reference client. Anyone is free to build a new compatible client and gain market share.
if they were not concerned they would have brought forward a HF to effect this long ago and there would never have been any 'attack'.
If anyone keeps logs of #bitcoin on IRC, you can see a very clear example of this mindset. The channel is not publicly logged, search for the following quotes (from a Core dev) to see a disturbing discussion:
"if the initial plan for a hardfork was a one time raise to 2MB there would hardly be any controversy"
"they tried the same with XT, I see this as just XT2"
"Maybe the only meaningful thing to do is just stand our ground"
As I have explained many times, Core has not had a opportunity to do a responsible HF, due to the attacks.
Gavin put forward a proposal for a 20MB limit in an appropriate way in early May 2015. The lead maintainer of Bitcoin Core, Wlad, said he was “weakly against” the idea “in the near future”, in a balanced neutral comment with pros and cons.
Source:
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-May/007890.html
This gave Gavin the opportunity for a more moderate proposal. I told him that I greatly respected him would support him up to 10MB, but that 20MB was too large.
Had Gavin come forward, at this point, with a 4MB proposal, to come into effect in May 2016, it would have been resoundingly accepted. This is what I thought Gavin would do. However, he absolutely astonished me by bringing forward an idea of locking in 8GB blocks. Not only this but he was attempting to activate this without strong consensus and instead preferred to lock in 25% miner opposition at the time of activation. This move was interpreted as an attack by the economic majority and had the effect of greatly delaying any blocksize increase. Implementing an increase with consensus was never given a chance. I repeat again, “all we saying, is give strong consensus a chance”.
So now we need consensus on the need for consensus before we can have consensus on the actual change?
Not necessarily no, as long as we have strong consensus for the change that should be fine, even if some people incorrectly think that is not necessary.
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I credit you heartily for staying civil in the face of opposition to your view.
I appreciate the dialogue,
@jonny1000
I'll also reiterate what the others have said, thanks for sticking it out here while being bombarded with arguments. I appreciate the different point of view!
i too appreciate the alternative views from
@jonny1000
Thankyou. I am totally fine with people opposing my view. The things that I feel make the conversation difficult to continue are the following:
1. Claims I am Adam Back
2. Claims I have a financial link to Blockstream
3. Claims that Blockstream have nefarious self interest in profiting from LN, which is why they are blocking a HF
4. Unnecessarily questioning the integrity of my character
If some of you large blocksists disagree with the above, please speak out. In the same way as I have questioned the moderation policy on /r/bitcoin.
But it would make me feel a lot better if Core adherents, small block supporters, and those who oppose controversial hard forks would acknowledge that there is altcoin competition, and that that means Bitcoin cannot afford to be as conservative
I do acknowledge altcoin competition. This is one of the many reasons I support a moderate increase in the blocksize, with strong consensus (which by the way is pretty easy to achieve, once we try). I think ensuring changes to money can’t occur without strong consensus is one of the key selling points of Bitcoin and will ensure its success.
WHAT WOULD A SOFT-FORKING CHANGE FROM 2MB BACK TO 1MB LOOK LIKE?
Ans. Miners would coordinate some time in the future, t0, where they agree to no longer build on top of blocks greater than 1MB; that is, at time t = t0 they would enforce a more-restrictive rule set.
Non-mining nodes may elect to enforce the restricted rule set (i.e., begin rejecting blocks greater than 1MB) at any time t >= t0. However, they CANNOT enforce the restricted rule set for t < t0, without the risk of forking themselves off the network.
WHAT SHOULD A HARD-FORKING CHANGE FROM 1MB TO 2MB LOOK LIKE?
Ans. Miners would coordinate some point in the future, t0, where they agree to build on top of blocks greater than 1MB; that is, at time t = t0 they would enforce a less-restrictive rule set.
Non-mining nodes may elect to stop enforcing the old rule set (i.e., begin accepting blocks greater than 1MB) at any time t <= t0. However, they CANNOT continue to enforce the old rule set for t > t0, without the risk of forking themselves off the network.
Peter, thank you for the pictures. There is of course one fundamental difference in the two cases, in the second case nodes are on a different chain, this does not occur in the first scenerio.
If nodes decide "hey, I want to allow blocks bigger than 1 MB today" and so cease to enforce the 1MB limit, how is this an attack?
The classification of the attack, is not just what the clients do, it is a value judgment based on several factors. In particular the fact that the client locks in 25% opposition at the time of activation, specifically to fork away from the expected significant opposition.
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If miners see that most nodes will already accept larger blocks and decide to start making them, how is this an attack?
Again, in itself that is not necessarily an attack. Currently I believe over 80% of nodes enforce the 1MB rule.
The point I am trying to get at is that your approach of "defeating the attack" puts you in a position where you have to try to convince other people to change their beliefs and behaviors.
This, I would contend, is bound to lead you to frustration.
Yes it is frustrating. I would say that understanding a hardfork cannot occur without strong consensus is about learning the characteristics and features of Bitcoin. To some extent it is already working, Peter R commented that “you are right so far”. If Bitcoin did not have this feature, I would never have been interested in it in the first place.
I hope that in several decades time the ecosystem is much larger and more powerful forces try to change one of the protocol rules, such as raising the 21M cap. At this point I hope you realize how important it is that hardfork’s cannot occur without strong consensus across the community and how important it was that the small blocksists won the battle in the 2014 to 2016 period.
If everyone had to agree on a set of principles or and ideology for Bitcoin to achieve consensus, then I would have little hope in its future. The thing that makes the system so powerful is that it can achieve strong consensus through economic incentives that encourage convergence on a set of Schelling points. Bitcoin relies not on good will or enlightened participants, but on incentives.
This is a smart comment. I mostly agree with that. What makes Bitcoin powerful is the ability for different people, with different ideologies and who may be enemies, to agree on the one true chain. This is an amazing feat of game theory, economics, science and engineering. However, we must accept that the system is not perfect. One thing I think the participants do need to agree on, is the rules for block validity.
