Block size limit controversy
This page documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. |
Contents
Arguments in favor of increasing the blocksize
- More transactions per second
Unclear Arguments
- Increased blocksize will leave space for extensions like Mastercoin, Counterparty, etc.
- Neutral: Bitcoin competitors will have lower fees
- Negative: Bitcoin full nodes are forced to use more resources that don't support Bitcoin
- Faster confirmation times with lower fees required
- Positive: Bitcoin users pay lower fees
- Negative: It will continue to be cheap to spam transactions such as Satoshi Dice bets
- Negative: Fees cannot be zero eventually in order to secure the mining ecosystem
Arguments in opposition to increasing the blocksize
- A hard fork requires waiting for sufficient consensus.
- However an emergency hard fork can achieve consensus for deployment on a short time period if needed.
- Risk of catastrophic consensus failure[1][clarification needed]
- Orphan rate amplification, more reorgs and double-spends due to slower propagation speeds.
- European/American pools at more of a disadvantage compared to the Chinese pools[why?]
- "Congestion" concerns can be solved with mempool improvements including transaction eviction.
- No amount of max block size would support all the world's future transactions on the main blockchain (various types of off-chain transactions are the only long-term solution)
- Fast block propagation is either not clearly viable, or (eg, IBLT) creates centralised controls.
Damage to decentralization
- Larger blocks make full nodes more expensive to operate.
- Therefore, larger blocks lead to less hashers running full nodes, which leads to centralized entities having more power, which makes Bitcoin require more trust, which weakens Bitcoins value proposition.
- Bitcoin is only useful if it is decentralized because centralization requires trust. Bitcoins value proposition is trustlessness.
- The larger the hash-rate a single miner controls, the more centralized Bitcoin becomes and the more trust using Bitcoin requires.
- Running your own full node while mining rather than giving another entity the right to your hash-power decreases the hash-rate of large miners. Those who have hash-power are able to control their own hash power if and only if they run a full node.
- Less individuals who control hash-power will run full nodes if running one becomes more expensive[2].
Entities positions
Positions below are based on a suggested fixed block size increase to 20MiB. Positions against these larger blocks do not necessarily imply that they are against an increase in general, and may instead support a smaller and/or gradual increase.
Entity | Supports Larger Blocks | Supports Hard Fork | |
---|---|---|---|
Bitcoinpaygate | No: "We do NOT support the blocksize increase"[3] | ||
Bitrated | No "At this time, I oppose increasing the block size limit as per Gavin's proposal" - Nadav Ivgi (founder)[4] |
||
F2Pool | No: "We do support bigger blocks and sooner rather than later. But we cannot handle 20 MB blocks right now. ... I think we can accept 5MB block at most."[5] | ||
GreenAddress | No: "In our mind increasing the block size like this is just pushing the problem a little further at potentially unfixable costs."[6] | ||
MPEx | No[7] | ||
Paymium | No: "[allow] a sane transaction fee market to emerge, by letting the blocks actually fill-up." - CTO David Francois[8] | ||
Ethereum |
Neutral: "If [the niche of digital gold] is what Bitcoin users want, then they should keep the limit, and perhaps even decrease it. But if Bitcoin users want to be a payment system, then up it must go." - Vitalik Buterin (founder)[9] | ||
Armory | Yes "This *is* urgent and needs to be handled right now, and I believe Gavin has the best approach to this." - CEO Alan Reiner[10] |
||
BitcoinReminder | Yes: "BitcoinReminder.com also supports 20MB blocks (or even more?"[11] | ||
BitHours | Yes: "We support @gavinandresen and his proposal for 20mb blocks"[12] | ||
BitPay | Yes "Agreed (but optimistic this will be the last and only time block size needs to increase)" - CEO Stephen Pair[13] |
||
Bittiraha.fi | Yes: "We are supporting increasing #Bitcoin max block size to 20MB."[14] "I'm strongly in favor of the block size cap increase to 20MB." - CEO Henry Brade[15] |
Yes "And I'm in favor of releasing a version with this change even with opposition." - CEO Henry Brade[16] | |
Blockchain.info | Yes "It is time to increase the block size. Agree with @gavinandresen" - CEO Peter Smith[17] "Scaling #bitcoin is a big deal. Increase the block size." - Nic Cary[18] |
||
Breadwallet | Yes "[...] in support of the Gavin's 20Mb block proposal." - CEO Aaron Voisine[19] |
||
BTC Guild | Yes "Needs to happen, but needs future expansion built in at a reasonable rate." - Eleuthria[20] |
||
BX.in.th | Yes: "http://BX.in.th will support the 20MB block size"[21] | ||
CoinBase | Yes: "Coinbase supports increasing the maximum block size"[22] "Why we should increase the block size" - CEO Brian Armstrong[23] |
||
Dr. Adam Back | Yes: "For the record I am not aware of a single person who has said they do not agree with scaling Bitcoin. Changing a constant is not the hard-part. The hard part is validating a plan and the other factors that go into it. It's not a free choice it is a security/scalability tradeoff. No one will thank us if we "scale" bitcoin but break it in hard to recover ways at the same time." [24] | No "I strongly urge that we return to the existing collaborative constructive review process that has been used for the last 4 years which is a consensus by design to prevent one rogue person from inserting a backdoor, or lobbying for a favoured change on behalf of a special interest group, or working for bad actor" - Dr. Adam Back[25] |
|
Kryptoradio | Yes "#Kryptoradio dev @zouppen supports 20MB block size in #bitcoin." - Joel Lehtonen[26] |
||
OKCoin | Yes: "OKCoin's tech team believes it's the right decision"[27] | ||
Third Key Solutions | Yes "Gavin is right. The time to increase the block size limit is before transaction processing shows congestion problems." - CTO Andreas Antonopoulos[28] |
||
Xapo | Yes: "One meg is not enough: Xapo supports increasing the maximum block size" - CEO Wences Casares[29] |
- ↑ https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg08276.html
- ↑ https://www.weusecoins.com/why-blocksize-limit-keeps-bitcoin-free-decentralized/
- ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/37y8wm/list_of_bitcoin_services_that_supportoppose/crqsnqp
- ↑ https://twitter.com/shesek/status/605005384026177537
- ↑ http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34157036/],[http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34158911/
- ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/35anax/list_of_bitcoin_services_that_support_increasing/cr2mq84
- ↑ http://log.bitcoin-assets.com//?date=07-01-2015#967332
- ↑ http://fr.anco.is/2015/gavineries/
- ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/380q61/i_know_this_may_not_directly_be_ethereum_related/crrofl6
- ↑ http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34093337/
- ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/37y8wm/list_of_bitcoin_services_that_supportoppose/crs9ytd
- ↑ https://twitter.com/bithours/status/605131647747358721
- ↑ https://twitter.com/spair/status/595341090317799424
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Bittirahafi/status/596682373028311040
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Technom4ge/status/596334370803326978
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Technom4ge/status/596334370803326978
- ↑ https://twitter.com/OneMorePeter/status/595676380320407553
- ↑ https://twitter.com/niccary/status/595707211994763264
- ↑ http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34096857/
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/370rko/21_inc_engineer_everyone_assumes_humans_will_be/crjfnpg?context=3
- ↑ https://twitter.com/BitcoinThai/status/605022509101023232
- ↑ https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/595741967759335426
- ↑ https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/595453245884997634
- ↑ https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg08276.html
- ↑ https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg08276.html
- ↑ https://twitter.com/koodilehto/status/596675967667568641
- ↑ https://twitter.com/okcoinbtc/status/598412795240009728
- ↑ https://twitter.com/aantonop/status/595601619581964289
- ↑ https://twitter.com/wences/status/595768917907402752