Live data from Hacker News

Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs

github.com

1–10 of 90 posts

Re: Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs

#2
I do not understand this move. If blockchain size is an issue, I don't understand why the focus isn't pruning the blockchain so that only the hashed headers are stored for past transactions. This defeats the point of having 8 decimal places if you can only reasonably use 3+.

Re: Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs

#3

I do not understand this move. If blockchain size is an issue, I don't understand why the focus isn't pruning the blockchain so that only the hashed headers are stored for past transactions. This defeats the point of having 8 decimal places if you can only reasonably use 3+.

It's presumably only temporary measure, and only present in the reference client.

Anything below four decimal places is completely worthless at this point anyway; do you really have a use for being able to send 0.01c USD?

Re: Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs

#4
I haven't gotten around to reading the Bitcoin paper yet. But in cases where features like this are added, don't they rely on most miners moving over? Otherwise, won't some miners reject the new block while others accept it?

Or it is only for non-confirmation mode that "dust" is dropped?

Re: Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs

#5
post #3

I do not understand this move. If blockchain size is an issue, I don't understand why the focus isn't pruning the blockchain so that only the hashed headers are stored for past transactions. This defeats the point of having 8 decimal places if you can only reasonably use 3+.

It's presumably only temporary measure, and only present in the reference client. Anything below four decimal places is completely worthless at this point anyway; do you really have a use for being able to send 0.01c USD?

Maybe I do, yes.

A handful of developers shouldn't be deciding acceptable business models for bitcoin. That's not going to lead anywhere good.

Re: Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs

#6

I do not understand this move. If blockchain size is an issue, I don't understand why the focus isn't pruning the blockchain so that only the hashed headers are stored for past transactions. This defeats the point of having 8 decimal places if you can only reasonably use 3+.

The UTXO acronym stands for unspent transaction output. Think of it as the total number of Bitcoin bank accounts. Pruning past transactions doesn't shrink this size at all. These UTXOs have to stick around and can never[1] be pruned as they're used in future transactions. And yes, it does seem like 8 decimal places was too much for the current time and they're now correcting for that.

[1] If they really wanted to do so with a major fork it's possible but it's not nearly worth the hassle.

Re: Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs

#7
post #3

I do not understand this move. If blockchain size is an issue, I don't understand why the focus isn't pruning the blockchain so that only the hashed headers are stored for past transactions. This defeats the point of having 8 decimal places if you can only reasonably use 3+.

It's presumably only temporary measure, and only present in the reference client. Anything below four decimal places is completely worthless at this point anyway; do you really have a use for being able to send 0.01c USD?

I can't but people are always talking up bitcoin's ability to be more than just currency, so I assume some of those people probably have a use.

Re: Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs

#8
I assume the reason behind this is to block people from encoding data into the block chain by doing thousands of worthless transactions. If I recall correctly someone recently encoded the URL to a child porn site into the block chain, this is the only reasonable response to prevent it from happening again IMO.

Re: Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs

#9
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's presumably only temporary measure, and only present in the reference client. Anything below four decimal places is completely worthless at this point anyway; do you really have a use for being able to send 0.01c USD?

Maybe I do, yes. A handful of developers shouldn't be deciding acceptable business models for bitcoin. That's not going to lead anywhere good.

It's like they did it by fiat or something.

Re: Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs

#10

I haven't gotten around to reading the Bitcoin paper yet. But in cases where features like this are added, don't they rely on most miners moving over? Otherwise, won't some miners reject the new block while others accept it? Or it is only for non-confirmation mode that "dust" is dropped?

If you're thinking this would result in a block chain split I don't think that's the case. This affects which transactions get relayed and eventually included into the blocks miners are mining against, but it doesn't mean that blocks with these transactions would be rejected by any client.
Post reply on HN