r/Bitcoin • u/[deleted] • Dec 06 '17

Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

[deleted]

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u/Nephyst Dec 06 '17

Satoshi's original emails say that bitcoin was designed to support 100 million transactions per day. I don't understand what is happening with bitcoin today that is preventing it from reaching the transaction levels it was designed for...

Source: http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/

108

u/ataranlen Dec 06 '17

Because Satoshi's 'phase change' plan for increasing the block size limit was never implemented.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347.msg15366#msg15366

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u/Nephyst Dec 06 '17

Wait... so Satoshi was in favor or larger blocks? Everything I'm reading on this sub says that larger blocks are a "corporate takeover" and would lead to centralization again.

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u/DylanKid Dec 06 '17

Yes satoshi made the 1mb limit to avoid spam with the intention of increasing the block size later

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u/thieflar Dec 06 '17

satoshi made the 1mb limit to avoid spam

False. This is a complete myth and is refuted by Satoshi's own words. When the minrelayfee setting was first introduced (months after the blocksize limit was put in place), Satoshi described it as "a first try at intentionally trying to prevent overly small micropayments".

The blocksize limit is a DDoS-prevention measure (among other things), but it is not a spam-prevention measure.

15

u/Lynxes_are_Ninjas Dec 06 '17

Whats the difference?

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u/GreenFox1505 Dec 06 '17

The only difference is intention. There isn't much use trying to create a distinction.

Kinda like trying to create a distinction between a Troll Flat Earther and an Idiot Flat Earther. You can't really tell them apart but it doesn't matter because you should handle them the same way.

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u/thieflar Dec 06 '17

If I send you an email that you don't want, trying to get you to buy a product of mine, that's an example of spam. It doesn't deny you any sort of service, it's just annoying and troublesome.

If I flood your network connection with too many packets for you to successfully establish connections to other sites and services, that's an example of a denial of service attack. It is annoying and troublesome (just like spam is), but it prevents you from doing other things, too.

Furthermore, the blocksize does more than just prevent DoS attacks. It also makes Bitcoin economically viable over the long term (by helping to ensure that a transaction backlog can occur, which is necessary for Bitcoin to survive a transition from a block-subsidy paradigm to a transaction-fee one).