TheMerkle - Is BIP 202 The Bitcoin Block Size Solution Everyone Can Agree On?

[jdebunt]

For those in the Bitcoin community who had hoped the block size debate had come to an end, you will be sorely mistaken. However, there seems to be good news, as a new GitHub proposal has been made by Jeff Garzik to incrementally increase the Bitcoin block size over time. BIP 202 is not overly complicated, and could end up being the solution everybody has been waiting for.

http://themerkle.com/news/is-bip-202-th ... -agree-on/

[arnoudk]

Increasing block size to 2 MB is definitely an improvement over keeping them at 1 MB. But it is a can kick at best, and before we know it we will need another hard fork for a more permanent solution.

It is not implemented until May 5 2016, midnight UTC. I am not sure if we have that much time, the next few months are historically the busiest and ideally I would have wanted a solution implemented a year ago. This discussion is already dragging on for far too long, you really do not want to hit capacity and then tell the (new) users: please wait patiently for half a year before we fix this issue.

I would support BIP202 - it is better than the status quo. But I would prefer something more permanent. I would prefer for the limit to be removed completely, as was originally intended. If that fails, I would like BIP101. If that fails, I'll settle temporarily for BIP202.

I'm aware that chinese miners want to be able to process the blocks in servers in their datacenters locally. But, and I think this is the key point, it is their responsibility to get the blocks there or find alternatives. Yes, they have the "Great" Firewall. Good for them. If you care about the firewall setting, then you are saying that the SINGLE PERSON who controls that firewall setting also controls bitcoin. How centralized did you want bitcoin to be? Let every miner solve their own problems. The free market will be very creative. In some parts of the world, cooling is an issue. In other parts, availability of electricity, in yet another the price of electricity, and in yet another the cost of labor. Chinese miners have a connectivity challenge. Let THEM deal with that. If you shield them from the problem, you are blocking the solution.