Gun to your head: would you rather see increased adoption through custodial wallets or bigger blocks?
Don't give me cop-out 3rd option pussy answers. Just play along in my hypothetical scenario in which those are the only 2 options.
Discussion
Gun to my head? 4MB blocks are fine.
Anything bigger is too risky. Bitcoin banks will exist.
This is a good answer, and technical 4MB means 8MB potential...right?
I also got confused. I don't know if he meant increasing x4 would be fine or if the current 4 virtual MB size is sufficient.
I’d support an increase, but only to 4MB. Currently the limit is effectively 2MB, but that’s because the old 1MB limit on blocks is still in effect and segwit just works around this to include other data like signatures outside of that space.
No.
The current limit is technically 4MB. The only increase I would potentially support is changing the segwit rule about signatures versus transaction data and make that 1MB limit increase to 4MB, which would standardize blocks and get rid of the discounts for signature data and such.
gun to my head, I like this move. But maybe a super duper trusted person who I know would keep my sats safe
Custodial.
Custodial. I assume i can still self custody in this scenario
You're assuming wrong. In this scenario, you get increasingly priced out from on-chain fees so self custody will only be worth it for ever increasing amounts
Tough question then... hah the tradeoff is brutal and important to consider. I herr on the side of not fucking with the protocol though simply to maintain the great experiment we are all in.
So you would be fine potentially defending a protocol that would only be useful for banks and custodians?
Big blocks end in the same hands, ya ? Having an interoperable money in the world with concrete unfuckable rules id be curious how that shakes shit up
Not necessarily. The segwit softfork effectively increased the blocksize and the world did not end. The rules have not been unfuckable, that's why bitcoin has been soft and hard forked in the past, when the situation justifies it.
How do you think this conundrum affects a pleb miner that finds alpha in some untapped energy source ? Im having trouble putting it all together in my brain but i think bigger blocks reduce revenue for miners, therefore makes it harder to participate for smaller entities. Whereas with higher and higher fees one can continue to participate in L1 without being crowded out if they are mining below par cost. 🤔
But i suppose in the custodial option you dont even have the option to pleb mine eventually 🤔 it eother becomes too expensive or not profotable eventually with either option.
Hard to say since fees will get lower but more transactions per block should be processed so it should even out.
It shouldn't affect you anyway since this is all happening in pretend-hypothetical-land.
Custodial I think. Bigger blocks would impact consensus and custodial doesn’t. I’m pretty sure custodial will be the way majority use bitcoin anyway. Sad to say but that’s likely then future reality.
Bigger blocks. Custodial bitcoin is not bitcoin... therefore it does not count as adoption
Bigger blocks
Not your keys not your cheese
Or what? You’ll take my nsec away?
Dude, it's a gun to your head. Use your imagination...
Custodial wallets.
I’m under duress though.
Gun to my head? I drop to the ground and swipe my assailants legs out from under him. I grab his gun as he falls, then pull his back against my chest while I breath into his ears.... 'not your keys? Not your cheese motherfucker', then pull the trigger.
I’m going with the custodial wallets. I hope they are nostr:npub1dx5q2el8nd4eh3eg9t2e25fd7zuqg7zxz6ldkc3uzgh66ss2yc6st288sj .
Custody for small amounts, pull into self-custody for large amounts. I’m a “no” on block size increases unless or until quantum computing becomes an issue and demands bigger encryption.
Also open to federations, covenants, and other “cop-out 3rd option pussy answers” because one of the benefits of bitcoin is that this isn’t binary.
Thanks for answering. Unfortunately, you broke my arbitrary rules and that second paragraph would get you shot😲
I don't know if people who answered custodial fully understand the question. Increase block size and keep using onchain, or, you are priced out of onchain and can only hold custodial. Why would I choose to only have custodial? Bitcoin would be useless.
They understood the question and the implications, don't worry.
Even though nothing is ever that extremely binary as I posed, my purpose was more to access the moral compass of the nostrverse and see where their priorities lie.
Mission accomplished.
Bigger blocks
Surprised but not surprised by the responses.
Custodial wallets contradict the entire reason bitcoin was created - to do away with trusted third parties.
There is little reason for Bitcoin without that
If the answer is custodial, bitcoin failed.
Been asking for bigger block since before the block size wars.
Your post is being talked about.
Added to the https://nostraco.in/hot feed
Definitely bigger blocks increasing as new fabs come online. Should be based on innovations in either storage density or the deflating cost per GB from new economies of scale.
Bigger blocks. Without self custody, bitcoin has failed
Yea, pretty much. 🤝 Counterparty risk breeds credit.
Not on my node 😉
At least wait until he puts the gun away.
I'm suprise to hear you would use your node to defend a network of custodians and banks
What good is your node if you don't use base chain? Imagine a scenario where onchain fees are 500 usd a tx. Only big corps and banks can pay that. What then?
Thank you for the question. It helps me to understand the potential issue. Let's start at a $100 fee level. Say bitcoin gets to $100,000. Moving 0.2 bitcoin would incur a 0.5% fee. What do you think of these numbers? I am okay with federated solutions for smaller amounts.
The problem is that if bitcoin keeps getting a lot more adoption, everyone will get priced out, specially ppl in the third world, even L2 like LN or Liquid will take a hit if base chain fees are too high. Don't forget we already had a "block increase" with segwit otherwise fees now would be a lot worse. Custodial solutions and many L2s will always play a part but sooner or later base layer will need to increase so that L2s can also be smoother. I think the only question is how is the block size increase done.
There is probably a ratio between on chain fees and cost of running a node (block size) that is an optimal trade off.
I'd rather use custodial services where it's easy to set up and run a custodial service than non custodial, but rely on a few data centres to run the nodes.
Increasing the blocksize should be out of the question, at least until we have exhausted all other possibilities.
We typically only discover new scaling opportunities out of necessity and constraint.
Any increase in blocksize necessarily has an impact on decentralisation (by increasing the cost of running a node).
We cannot gloss over this essential point, by framing a blocksize increase as low hanging fruit, in terms of scaling Bitcoin.
Optional custodial solutions on layer 3 are better than mandatory custodial solutions on layer 1.
> at least until we have exhausted all other possibilities
That is exactly the premise of my to original question.
Easy. Bigger blocks.
Custodial wallets mean surveillance, confiscation, fractional reserve, trading against the customers/population. Store of value/max supply doesn't mean anything when governments allow entities to go fractionally. Especially if 99% of activity takes place between custodians you could just sign up for the CBDC.
Bigger blocks only become dangerous when only Google, Amazon & co. can run the data centres like with all proof-of-stake coins today.
But that is much further down the road and technical progress plays into our hands as a smaller or bigger offset of the negative consequences.
#Bitcoin #Monero
Luckily reality is easier than that. That's my Bitcoin centric perspective.
Since other chains like Monero with bigger blocks exist there is no need for BTC to ever increase blocksizes. And even in a world where fully custodial BTC can not be used to get into Monero, I certainly would use any coin that can gap the world between "white labeled" and "black free" markets. So what I say is that in that scenario even shitcoins will have value in the future for those who seek maximum privacy on-chain.
Both end up custodial. Not cool. Custodied wallets like binance are already censoring tx's. Larger blocks, as you say, lead to only large players.
In the hypothetical, third options don't exist, but in reality they do.
Drivechains; reduce the block size (yes , reduce, you read that right) ossify, push scaling to layer 2 , user choice opt in sidechains.
Maxi's would rather see Bitcoin die then admit the simplest elegant solution all along, that they did not come up with, out of their infinite genious.
A custodial wallet is the equivalent of a siloed, censored and potentially banned social media account limiting social interactions/transactions.
So Bitcoiners writing about their preference for custodial solutions on Nostr after they have been censored and banned is beyond hilarious.