Re: [Bitcoin-development] Block Size Increase

[Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@bitpay.com>]

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On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 11:16 AM, Justus Ranvier <justusranvier@riseup.net>
wrote:

> To be extremely specific: should Bitcoin development intenionally
> limit the network's capabilities to leave room for other projects, or
> should Bitcoin attempt to be the best system possible and let the
> other projects try to keep up as best they can?
>


Avoid such narrow, binary thinking.

Referencing the problem described in
http://gavinandresen.ninja/why-increasing-the-max-block-size-is-urgent
(not the solution - block size change - just the problem, tx/block Poisson
mismatch)

This problem - block creation is bursty - is fundamental to bitcoin.
Raising block size does not fix this problem (as [1] notes), but merely
kicks the can down the road a bit, by hiding it from users a bit longer.

Bitcoin is a settlement system, at the most fundamental engineering level.
It will never be an instant payment system for all the world's coffees (or
all the world's stock trades).  It is left to "Layer 2" projects to
engineer around bitcoin's gaps, to produce an instant, secure, trustless,
egalitarian payment system using the bitcoin token.  [1] also notes this.

It is therefore not a binary decision of leaving room for other projects,
or not.  Layer-2 projects are critical to the success of bitcoin, and
complement bitcoin.






[1] http://gavinandresen.ninja/it-must-be-done-but-is-not-a-panacea

Holistic thinking implies you build a full-stack system with bitcoin

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