[Bitcoin-development] Proposed alternatives to the 20MB step function

[Matt Whitlock <bip@mattwhitlock.name>]

Between all the flames on this list, several ideas were raised that did not get much attention. I hereby resubmit these ideas for consideration and discussion.

- Perhaps the hard block size limit should be a function of the actual block sizes over some trailing sampling period. For example, take the median block size among the most recent 2016 blocks and multiply it by 1.5. This allows Bitcoin to scale up gradually and organically, rather than having human beings guessing at what is an appropriate limit.

- Perhaps the hard block size limit should be determined by a vote of the miners. Each miner could embed a desired block size limit in the coinbase transactions of the blocks it publishes. The effective hard block size limit would be that size having the greatest number of votes within a sliding window of most recent blocks.

- Perhaps the hard block size limit should be a function of block-chain length, so that it can scale up smoothly rather than jumping immediately to 20 MB. This function could be linear (anticipating a breakdown of Moore's Law) or quadratic.

I would be in support of any of the above, but I do not support Mike Hearn's proposed jump to 20 MB. Hearn's proposal kicks the can down the road without actually solving the problem, and it does so in a controversial (step function) way.