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The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

vitalik.ca

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Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#71

Post by crazypython »

nivexous wrote: post #53

So many reputations and projects in blockchain rest on this flawed idea that users need to run nodes. Users do nothing to extend the chain! If a group of miners wants to change the protocol, it takes another group of miners to counter it. And there always will be another group, because miners compete. From the bitcoin whitepaper: "He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules". And let's get serious: users…

> So many reputations and projects in blockchain rest on this flawed idea that users need to run nodes.

BSV obviates the idea completely.

Any mistake the miners make, is forever.

Without this, miners could increase the money supply by indefinitely postponing the block reward.

> "He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules" > If a group of miners wants to change the protocol, it takes another group of miners to counter it.

No one is going to mine on a chain that produces worthless coins users don't accept. Users forced miners to activate Segwit in 2017, and almost all hashpower is still with Bitcoin.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#72

Post by javert »

542458 wrote: post #11
javert wrote: post #6

You could also just not scale the blockchain, and instead use layer 2 solutions, which is the bitcoin approach.

BTC’s layer 2 method also doesn’t scale because (among other reasons) you still need on-chain transactions to handle opening connections and creating wallets, which the main chain does not have the throughput to do at scale. That’s also not to mention all the practical difficulties of using lightning (have to constantly monitor for fraudulent closing of connections, locks up liquidity, etc) and technical issues (rout…

Lightning is not the only layer 2.

In fact, the most obvious layer 2 is simply to use custodial solutions.

However, I personally think lightning works better in practice than what you're saying.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#74

Post by xorcist »

nivexous wrote: post #63
dmitriid wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then they can choose which fork to buy or sell. Funny how this is now the only activity for this: buy and sell forks in a vacuum. Because in actual real world scenarios users definitely don't chose that. Just go into a shop and watch people not chosing anything, but, you know, just paying.

Even granting that, it's still not user nodes that matter. We've seen from history (BCH/BSV/BCHA) that applications and exchanges decide which fork gets the ticker.

It was the other way around. Several exchanges publicly went all-in on various Bitcoin forks, only to turn around on them when all users and economic activity stayed with "regular" Bitcoin.

Many prominent people predicted the mainline Bitcoin chain dead when so many important exchanges and custodians promised to change the consensus rules. In retrospect it may sound like empty threats, it doesn't make much business sense to go up against economic activity, but at the time it was considered a real threat.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#75

Post by an_opabinia »

narush wrote: post #22

Vitalik is consistently one of the most interesting people to follow in the blockchain space. Even his (5+ year) old writing is quite interesting, if nothing else to see how Ethereum's research thinking has evolved over time. A few questions re: why "Ethereum is not going further than quadratic [sharding]." The first reason given: there's a minimum number of nodes required for shard for safety guarantees. So, a coupl…

[deleted]

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#76

Post by gruez »

diegocg wrote: post #46
542458 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC’s layer 2 method also doesn’t scale because (among other reasons) you still need on-chain transactions to handle opening connections and creating wallets, which the main chain does not have the throughput to do at scale. That’s also not to mention all the practical difficulties of using lightning (have to constantly monitor for fraudulent closing of connections, locks up liquidity, etc) and technical issues (rout…

Don't worry, bitcoin will solve these problems... With a third layer!

Many of the problems listed are either overstated or have solutions already. eg.

>you still need on-chain transactions to handle opening connections and creating wallets, which the main chain does not have the throughput to do at scale

channel factories

>have to constantly monitor for fraudulent closing of connections

watchtowers (which are trustless) and you don't actually have to "constantly" monitor, more like once every 2 weeks.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#77

Post by Ar-Curunir »

laurent92 wrote: post #3
maxrev17 wrote: post #2

This is a really good read. More of this and less of Elon's chatter needed!

I was trying to summarize, for an employee who got caught in “Elon Musk shouldn’t have manipulated the BTC” (!) (obviously the employee lost 25% of his savings), I was trying to summarize the list of dangers of having savings in BTC. - Laws of any big country could change and trigger the sale for a lot of sellers of a country, - Especially given BTC is used by Iran to bypass petrol restrictions, used by ransomware an…

Sanctions are not a good thing; they inevitably affect the common person much more than they affect sanctioned governments.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#78

Post by SubiculumCode »

narush wrote: post #38

One thing blockchain scalability conversations often miss is the concept of induced demand [1]. City streets and computer hardware and blockchain throughput. We dream that 'make bigger, make faster' will alleviate congestion in all of these places, and make our commute and compute as fast and cheap as we want it to be. But in practice, commuters are programmers are blockchain users. For commuters, if more lanes get a…

And that is why scaling solutions like Polygon have a future if Ethereum has a future.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#79

Post by Analemma_ »

an_opabinia wrote: post #75
narush wrote: post #22

Vitalik is consistently one of the most interesting people to follow in the blockchain space. Even his (5+ year) old writing is quite interesting, if nothing else to see how Ethereum's research thinking has evolved over time. A few questions re: why "Ethereum is not going further than quadratic [sharding]." The first reason given: there's a minimum number of nodes required for shard for safety guarantees. So, a coupl…

[deleted]

Proof of stake is six months away and always will be.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#80

Post by mistrial9 »

jeremycarter wrote: post #40
gruez wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because layer 2 solutions (eg. LN) are trustless. ie. it doesn't involve you depositing your coins with some third party and trusting that they don't run off with them.

And you've personally lost money from government regulated financial institutions?

my USA bank re-arranged the order of my checks and ATM on a certain day in december of 2007 to create an overdraft, which then was charged large fees, several times. At a similar time, around dec 2007, I stood next to a BofA customer being told that his cash deposit at the BofA window, would be credited on the next business day. I believe that there are documented cases much, much larger, but involving commercial transactions, that ended up with large losses also.
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