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

[Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net>]

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>
> It's surprising to see a core dev going to the public to defend a proposal
> most other core devs disagree on, and then lobbying the Bitcoin ecosystem.
>

I agree that it is a waste of time. Many agree. The Bitcoin ecosystem
doesn't really need lobbying - my experience from talking to businesses and
wallet developers months ago is they virtually all see raising capacity as
a no brainer ... and some of them see this "debate" as despair-inducing
insanity.

What's happened here is that a small number of people have come to believe
they have veto power over changes to Bitcoin, and they have also become
*wildly* out of step with what the wider community wants. That cannot last.
So, short of some sudden change of heart that lets us kick the can down the
road a bit longer, a fork is inevitable.

Just be glad it's Gavin driving this and not me ... or a faceless coalition
of startups.


> Decentralization is the core of Bitcoin's security model and thus that's
> what gives Bitcoin its value.
>

No. Usage is what gives Bitcoin value.

It's kind of maddening that I have to point this out. Decentralisation is a
means to an end. I first used Bitcoin in April 2009 and it was perfectly
decentralised back then: every wallet was a full node and every computer
was capable of mining.

So if you believe what you just wrote, I guess Bitcoin's value has gone
down every day since.

On the other hand, if you believe the markets, Bitcoin's value has gone up.

Apparently the question of what gives Bitcoin its value is a bit more
complicated than that.




> : to incentive layer 2 and offchain solutions to scale Bitcoin : there are
> promising designs/solutions out there (LN, ChainDB, OtherCoin protocole,
> ...), but most don't get much attention, because there is right now no need
> for them. And, I am sure new solutions will be invented.
>

I have seen this notion a few times. I would like to dispose of it right
now.

I am one of the wallet developers you would be trying to "incentivise" by
letting Bitcoin break, and I say: get real. Developers are not some
bottomless fountain of work that will spit out whatever you like for free
if you twist their arms badly enough.

The problems that incentivised the creation of Bitcoin existed for decades
before Bitcoin was actually invented. Incentives are not enough. Someone
has to actually do the work, too. All proposals on the table would:

   - Involve enormous amounts of effort from many different people
   - Be technically risky (read: we don't know if they would even work)
   - Not be Bitcoin

The last point is important: people who got interested in Bitcoin and
decided to devote their time to it might not feel the same way about some
network of payment hubs or whatever today's fashion is. Faced with their
work being broken by armchair developers on some mailing list, they might
just say screw it and walk away completely.

After all, as the arguments for these systems are not particularly logical,
they might slave over hot keyboards for a year to support the Lightning
Network or whatever and then discover that it's no longer the fashionable
thing ... and that suddenly an even more convoluted design is being
"incentivised".

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