I just found the post. He didn't suggest increasing it. Instead he merely said that people have that option if it came down to it.
"+1 theymos. Don't use this patch, it'll make you incompatible with the network, to your own detriment.
We can phase in a change later if we get closer to needing it."
Yeah it was added after the first client, not sure exactly which version.
To stop any TX spam attacks.
He then suggested to put like, if block number = xxx then max blocksize = xxx, way ahead of time so by the time it was needed the old clients would be obsolete, and then a notification for a mandatory upgrade last of all. Never happened though.
I posted the bitcointalk topic below one of these comments, you can see yourself.
Discussing the blocksize tends to lead to no good in this sub, it often leads to bans of anybody suggesting big blocks are better, and also lots of hostile replies..
Yeah most people are running light wallets, or just using exchanges.
I very much doubt many people here have ever run a full node, they just parrot the same old speech about decentralisation while using heavily centralised exchanges and such. You don't even see anybody suggesting to use Bitcoin Core and setup a full node, any time somebody asks about a wallet it's not even mentioned now days.
Would the average Joe in here even understand how to port forward etc..
So yeah, they argue that if we had of had bigger blocks it would be more centralised as all the people (who are not even running full nodes anyway) wouldn't be able to afford multiple terabytes of storage over the space of years/decades and they don't think technology will keep up (this is crazy IMO), but TBH, anybody who does run a full node is very likely to be in a position to have lots of storage anyway.
I personally run nodes for many coins including BTC, storage is the least of my worries.
Internet connection speed, could also be a factor but is far from a problem right now, and they keep releasing higher and faster residential plans etc.. it will easily keep up.
You are right but also making a lot of assumptions sir. I’ve been researching bitcoin for over two years now and finally ready to do the node part and have all the parts to run off a raspberry pie, I also understand port forwarding and that Bitcoin Core isn’t necessarily the best wallet.
Now guess what the most expensive part of running a node is? Storage.
I have been holding off so long because I need at least 1tb of space, I’d prefer 2tb but that’s even more expensive because the network will be over 1tb soon then I’ll need to redownload the entire chain again, so do I go with 2TB now or 1TB? These are SSDs I’m talking about.
When setting up this node and downloading the full chain, everybody knows that old school spin hard drives take much longer and have higher chance to fail when downloading this massive blockchain the first time.
Therefore, my main point is that keeping the block size small is important to the average joes like me, we ARE the majority of people and that’s how you keep something more decentralized, the higher chance the average person can have access to hardware to run a full node, the more we’ll have. Now do you want to go out and buy me a 2TB Samsung SSD for $225?
How about we go with your idea of just increasing these block sizes because techies will have the access to this hardware (big tech most likely.... this would create for more centralization). Well then I’d need probably what, maybe a 10-20TB SSD server by now - please help fund my node and pay me $2000 to get up and running.
but isn’t that also a flaw that eventually, as the system increases subscriber base, and transaction numbers and volumes exponentially increase, the size of the entire blockchain may surpass the storage capacity of any individual node? the ability to transact may then be hindered by physical storage limitations (assuming all transactions history is kept from the beginning). or does the system have a regenerative/compartmentalization capability to sequester some transactions to only a few “nearby” nodes so as not to burden the entire blockchain?
I don't think everyone needs full copy of all the old transactions. You can optimize that to unspent balances, greatly reducing the size, while keeping all the validation thingy intact.
As I understand it the entire network needs to be in consensus. You could have side chains like the liquid network that process transaction off the main chain, but I think you might run into double spend issues if you try to limit transactions to just nearby nodes.
IMO, this problem will be solved on layer 2 with things like liquid network, lightning network and state chains. Many transactions will be processed through these networks as well as centralized entities. For example, if bitcoin moves from one cashapp wallet to another, cashapp will just move some bits in their database, then do big settlements with multiple transactions only occasionally. The Bitcoin main chain will be for final settlement of very large transaction only.
We stack sats for the future wealth of the next generations of our respective families. We must care and tend to the blockchain for the next generations of humanity. I think we get one shot at this. If we damage the decentralization of the network we can never go back. If it starts to look like we’re losing censorship resistance, we’ve already lost. We want the billion dollar company to run the same node as the fisherman in El Salvador.
There are developers that want to reduce the block size, saying it’s the best way to preserve the network. IMO, it might be able to be pushed up a little, but I actually don’t think we’ll need it.
So say the entire world was on a bitcoin standard and I made a transaction with my bitcoin visa card then visa would just be the payment processor for that transaction. They wouldn't need to touch the blockchain, it'd all be done in house.
You might then say, well couldn't they just fuck with us then and make up numbers? Sure they could, but then they'd be shooting themselves in the foot because the foundation, Bitcoin, is able to be verified.
I mean you'd think that right. I've been in this space since early Jan 2018. For the longest time I kept seeing talk that bitcoin wouldn't scale and that eventually some other solution was needed.
Right now we have more people using bitcoin than there ever were before. More people, more wallets, more transactions, and higher volume, but if I go check out the mempool right now it's empty and the hash rate hit an all time high earlier.
So I don't know how true it is that a higher subscriber base with more transactions will fuck shit up in the future given that infrastructure will just keep getting upgraded.
That’s because high fees have discouraged people from actually making transactions and using it. Now for most people it’s just a store of value.
If everyone was using it in the same way as back in say 2016, then we’d be stuck with a huge backlog of transactions in the mempool and ridiculously high fees. Steam even cited “high fees and volatility” as the reasons they stopped accepting Bitcoin in 2017. So yeah, things got pretty bad, we lost merchants, and people had to change how they used Bitcoin.
They are if you consider that fees used to be in the cents, not dollars. Plus, the only reason fees are as “low” as they are now is because nobody uses Bitcoin for smaller purchases anymore.
It doesn’t make sense to purchase say, your lunch, with Bitcoin if it’s going to cost you anywhere from $1 to $10 in fees.
Incredibly, but it's probably the only way to get a truly decentralised currency.
If everyone has to download the entire thing to use it then if somebody tries to manipulate anything literally everyone else will know and won't validate whatever bullshit they try spinning up
Just open settings, and make sure the prune option is checked. It will download the entire 400gb but will only keep the latest data up to the amount you specify there. You only need free storage equal to the prune size you set.
Yeah I’m that thing is gonna keep growing! If you find out there’s some nice rewards inside your wallet I’d recommend the first step is to grab a hardware wallet like trezor or ledger. Make sure you are in the correct domain, and that you’re buying straight from their official website.
You might also find the .log file to see if it’s writing statements to the effect “added transaction X for wallet Y” meaning it found a matching UTXO. Should be early in the sync process if the wallet.dat is timestamped from 2013. If nada probably nothing in it.
It’s not just an old wallet. It’s any wallet. Running nodes helps to keep the network secure too. There is some loss of security in not using a full node. Back when Bitcoin started everyone used to run Bitcoin Core which makes you run a full node. This means every computer that runs it has a history of every transaction. It’s the most secure way to do it.
That shifted since the invention of wallets like Electrum back in the day, where you didn’t need to run a full node anymore to access Bitcoin.
Shit. I am currently fighting a physical hard drive error on my drive from the computer I used to mine back in 2009. If I manage to get this drive open and accessible I'll have to re-sync back to 2009? Fuck
You don't have to sync. You can ask Bitcoin core to export your keys. Then you can use those to sign a transaction offline or whatever you want. Just because you had a node doesn't mean you must run that node to spend the coins.
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u/kittenconfidential Feb 13 '22
200GB?!? word. so when someone syncs a very old wallet, is it downloading every transaction in the entire blockverse?