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From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com>
To: Raph Frank <raphfrk@gmail.com>
Cc: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Incorporating block validation rule modifications into the block chain
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2013 07:42:07 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAAS2fgR5=nLTBQUBzjZQs91AVw5XSTiqe-KB_T9R9wKfBrOq6Q@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAN1xFdrGiWmn_EaBNMXXZAV38oeqP14YiMzMZQrkA+WL9QEMfA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 6:58 AM, Raph Frank <raphfrk@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Bitcoin is not a democracy— it quite intentionally uses the consensus
>> mechanism _only_ the one thing that nodes can not autonomously and
>> interdependently validate (the ordering of transactions).
> So, how is max block size to be decided then?

In one sense it already is decided— there is a protocol rule
implementing a hard maximum, and soft rules for lower targets.  If
it's to be changed it would only be by it being obvious to almost
everyone that it should _and_ must be.  Since, in the long run,
Bitcoin can't meet its security and decenteralization promises without
blockspace scarcity to drive non-trivial fees and without scaling
limits to keep it decenteralized— it's not a change that could be made
more lightly than changing the supply of coin.

I hope that should it become necessary to do so that correct path will
be obvious to everyone, otherwise there is a grave risk of undermining
the justification for the confidence in the immutability of any of the
rules of the system.



  reply	other threads:[~2013-02-13 15:42 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 16+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2013-02-12 13:49 [Bitcoin-development] Incorporating block validation rule modifications into the block chain Raph Frank
2013-02-12 15:49 ` Gregory Maxwell
2013-02-13 14:58   ` Raph Frank
2013-02-13 15:42     ` Gregory Maxwell [this message]
2013-02-13 21:02       ` Gavin Andresen
2013-02-13 21:05         ` Gregory Maxwell
2013-02-13 23:10         ` Stephen Pair
2013-02-14  0:28           ` Gregory Maxwell
2013-02-14  2:44             ` Stephen Pair
2013-02-14  3:38               ` Gregory Maxwell
2013-02-14  5:36                 ` Stephen Pair
2013-02-14  6:07               ` Peter Todd
2013-02-14 12:59                 ` Stephen Pair
2013-02-18 16:22                   ` Peter Todd
2013-02-14  1:02       ` Gregory Maxwell
2013-02-14  6:39         ` Peter Todd

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