Core dev: 2MB hard fork february 2017

[LiteCoinGuy]

"They are mutually exclusive, right now. We had a series of data-driven open workshops exploring this question, and the clear result was that the network can't currently handle more than about 2MB block sizes at this point in time and retain its adversarial protections.

Now if you look to the Core roadmap you'll see a number of research directions mentioned (e.g. IBLT, weak blocks) which are expected to increase capacity. The plan, put simply, is this: use the existing excess capacity to deploy segwit; concurrently research and deploy IBLT, weak blocks, and various other network layer improvements; measure and verify that these technologies have in fact at least doubled the available capacity; deploy a block size increase fork. It is most likely that around this time next year we should be working out the details of a 2MB hard fork on top of the already deployed segwit code.

If I were a betting man, that's the outcome I'd put my money on. But the philosophy of Core is conservative, and we do not feel that we should be betting with the entire Bitcoin economy by committing to a 2MB hard fork in addition to segwit and setting dates before we have even developed and tested the technology that would make it safe to do both. The scenario I outlined above is the most probable outcome with what we know today, but there are known unknowns and probably unknown unknowns that could interfere with such a schedule. We think that the network could support another doubling after mitigating the effects of the Great Firewall. We think that a combination of IBLT and weak blocks will be able to do that, although no concrete proposal exists as yet. We think that deployment of these technologies will be all that is required to achieve the next level of scale. We think. But all of that is untested, and it would be irresponsible and reckless of us to commit to such an outcome before we actually did our homework.

Right now, we are only certain that the network could be safely made to support double its present on-chain capacity with either a 2MB hard-fork or segwit deployment. Of these, segwit is the obvious clear winner as it brings other scaling benefits as well. So we can commit to a schedule for that and do our best to meet that deployment schedule. We have also identified the problems that we believe are holding us back from a further doubling, and possible solutions to those problems which require more research. We can commit to doing the proper research in a timely fashion, and hope that deployment of that technology leads to another capacity doubling. But that's an empirical question, and we can't promise the results!"

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