This all reads like straight propaganda from /r/bitcoin and none of it is true.
Decentralization of a currency doesn't mean or have to do with development, that is a separate issue. Still, whoever controls github commits is going to control the reference implementation and that isn't many people.
Decentralization refers to being able to use money electronically without any third party's permission. All the rest of this are obvious talking points to try to redefine bitcoin as more unique than it is. It was always completely possible to copy everything and modify any part of it. Part of the excitement is that there is actual competition in currencies.
Non mining nodes ensure transactions/blocks followed certain rules. When attached to wallets and services, that means much more than "just relaying blocks".
This part is just a straight lie and someone has grossly mislead you. Non mining blocks have nothing to do with making blocks or deciding anything. All they can do is relay blocks that the miner decide. This is like someone printing books, those books being sold on amazon and a hundred other stores, then someone arguing that a single library deciding not to carry a book has any bearing on that book being created.
3. Layer 1 scaling is poor design. Larger blockchain = less nodes due to more expensive hardware requirements = more centralization. BSV and BCH are mostly dead because of getting this wrong, no debate about it.
When people say things like this it's obvious that they only get information from /r/bitcoin and don't have understanding beyond the heavily curated narrative there. Do you ever stop to think about why other cryptocurrencies don't need a second layer? Do you think the optimal throughput is a few kilobytes per second worth of transactions for the whole world? It all has to be synced on the main chain anyway. A second layer is a solution in search of a problem.
Larger blockchain = less nodes due to more expensive hardware requirements
Have you ever done the math on this? I can never believe people keep repeating something so obviously wrong. Bitcoin runs at dialup speed. A $10 per month VPS literally runs at 50,000 times the speed that the bitcoin network does. There have been times when average transaction costs spiked so high one transaction fee could pay for the hard drive space and vps time to host a node for months. The craziest thing here is that nodes don't even really matter. The miners can broadcast blocks themselves and anyone can sync with the chain if they want.
> Decentralization refers to being able to use money electronically without any third party's permission.
Decentralization refers to many things, it depends on the discussion. I explained the scope of my statements in the parent.
> Non mining nodes...All they can do is relay blocks that the miner decide.
You are wrong here, they also do validation which is why its important for wallet owners and services to run their own nodes even if they dont mine.
>Do you ever stop to think about why other cryptocurrencies don't need a second layer?
Yes, it is because they are highly centralized chains that might as well run on sql and/or ghost chains with no users.
>Do you think the optimal throughput is a few kilobytes per second worth of transactions for the whole world?
Yes, offchain transaction batching is a good scaling strategy. Satoshi recommended it as a solution.
>Have you ever done the math on this?
Yes, bitcoin full nodes are much cheaper to host on a vps than ethereum full nodes for that reason. Larger blocks = more bandwidth and hd space = more time to download and fully validate. I assure you, running one costs a lot more than 10$/month. Perhaps you should check the math on your claim.
Decentralization refers to many things, it depends on the discussion.
No it doesn't. Decentralization in cryptocurrency always meant being able to make transactions without a central controlling authority. Someone has mislead you to a strange backwards rationalization to say bitcoin is unique.
they also do validation which is why its important for wallet owners and services to run their own nodes even if they dont mine.
They might validate blocks before rebroadcasting them. This is not the same as miners dictating the ordering of transactions that goes in to a block. These are two different things. One is vital, one is a very minor convenience. Have you read the actual bitcoin pdf? Have you read about cryptocurrencies outside of /r/bitcoin ?
It actually isn't crucial for someone to run their own node, someone just needs a way to query the current state of the chain.
Yes, it is because they are highly centralized chains that might as well run on sql and/or ghost chains with no users.
Where are you getting nonsense like this? This is circular logic, your 'evidence ' is just saying the same thing over and over. Ethereum has had more transactions than bitcoin for the last four years. Here is actual evidence:
Yes, offchain transaction batching is a good scaling strategy. Satoshi recommended it as a solution.
Satoshi recommended lifting the block size limit and having relatively few nodes that could handle huge amounts of on chain traffic. I don't remember anything about stopping at 1.166 KB/s as throughput.
I assure you, running one costs a lot more than 10$/month. Perhaps you should check the math on your claim.
Your evidence is "I assure you" ? I'll show you actual evidence and you can check my math.
Here you can see a 700KB average block size roughly every 10 minutes. That is 1.166.66 KB/s
A $10/month VPS will have a 1 gigabit connection. That is going to be 125 megabytes per second. That is 107,204 times faster than the bandwidth of the bitcoin network. The entire bitcoin blockchain is only 437 gigabytes. That VPS could download the entire chain from the last 13 years in about an hour. To give you some reference of how much faster that is than what is needed, an SR71 blackbird at a top speed of mach 3.3 is only 75,600 times faster than a slug.
As for drive space, the entire chain will fit on a 512 GB thumb drive. These can be bought for $40 USD. Here is where the average fee for a single transaction was over $62 USD. A average single transaction cost more than storing the entire chain on an SSD because of the terrible bitcoin throughput.
I would check your math, but you didn't give any at all. You have been taken in by a complete lack of real information. Try asking about it on /r/bitcoin and watch your comment be deleted or shadow banned. There is a reason you aren't getting any real information.
>Decentralization in cryptocurrency always meant being able to make transactions without a central controlling authority.
Incorrect, that is a laymans view.
>It actually isn't crucial for someone to run their own node, someone just needs a way to query the current state of the chain.
"Dont trust, verify" means nothing to you, I can see.
>That VPS could download the entire chain from the last 13 years in about an hour.
Download and validate is the objective, not just download. Do that math for an avg dual core vps. It takes about 48 hours. Now calculate the same for full 10-100x sized blocks and realize how silly the idea of onchain scaling gets.
>As for drive space, the entire chain will fit on a 512 GB thumb drive. These can be bought for $40 USD.
Lol, I'm sure vps hosts will allow you to plug thumb drives in as storage or sell storage to you at the off-the-shelf price /s. Putting that absurdity aside for a second, 10-100x the chain size and do the same math.
I can tell youve never self-hosted or cloud-hosted a node by your approach to calculating the costs. Full nodes need to be easy to spin up, validate on limited hardware/bandwith in a reasonable period of time, and stay synced.
Also its good to remember that 99% of nodes sitting on big 3 cloud hosting providers is not real node decentralization.
Finally, I dont use reddit. You can stop referencing it.
This was the original definition by the creator of bitcoin and the people that took it over. Maybe you should think about who the 'layman' is here.
"Dont trust, verify" means nothing to you, I can see.
When you say stuff like this, it's obvious you don't understand how cryptocurrencies even work. You aren't going to be able to forge a different chain without mining blocks yourself. You aren't going to be able to out mine the miners. This is the whole point and you seem desperate to ignore it.
Download and validate is the objective, not just download. Do that math for an avg dual core vps. It takes about 48 hours. Now calculate the same for full 10-100x sized blocks and realize how silly the idea of onchain scaling gets.
I've been syncing with the chain on desktops, raspberry pis and old cell phones for 10 years. You are probably basing this on downloading a block then verifying in lockstep on a very inefficient implementation. Blocks take fractions of a second to verify even on the slow reference implementation with bizarre vector copying and memory allocation choices. All these are the same arguments people have made on /r/bitcoin for years, since they delete replies from anyone who proves them wrong.
Lol, I'm sure vps hosts will allow you to plug thumb drives in as storage or sell storage to you at the off-the-shelf price /s. Putting that absurdity aside for a second, 10-100x the chain size and do the same math.
I did all the math for you, you still have no evidence. All you're saying is "what about 100x the capacity??" It would obviously work fine, which I showed you with numbers and basic stats of the current blockchain. 10x would be literally $70 of hard drive space.
Where are you getting your information and why do you think these things won't work? Other cryptocurrencies are literally doing what you keep saying is impossible and you haven't given any actual numbers.
>Maybe you should think about who the 'layman' is here.
Its pretty clear by the sidestepping and bad calculations in your responses.
> Blocks take fractions of a second to verify.
We were talking about spinning new nodes, why move the goal posts to make yourself sound reasonable? 10-100x the time it takes to download and fully validate 700,000 blocks in the big block world you want.
>I did all the math for you, you still have no evidence.
Cloud hosting 10-100x (5-50TB) is not a one time $70 cost, not even close. Youre doing bad math.
It's silly and we havent even touched the hardware update frequency required to store the volume of onchain spam this would introduce.
You may be out of your depth in this discussion. High degree of node centralization would be the outcome of the parameters you are proposing. I'm not surprised your posts get deleted from subreddits. Based on your description, the admins seem to expect users to think about 2nd order effects before posting.
Its pretty clear by the sidestepping and bad calculations in your responses.
There has been no sidestepping, I showed you real numbers and evidence, you showed me nothing.
We were talking about spinning new nodes, why move the goal posts to make yourself sound reasonable? 10-100x the time it takes to download and fully validate 700,000 blocks in the big block world you want.
No, you keep harping on that even though it has no impact on decentralization. This one of the many weird talking points you keep lumping together without understanding what matters. If you have ever synced with the chain yourself you would know that CPU usage is practically nothing overall.
Again, other currencies already deal with and have tested this stuff out. It's trivial.
Cloud hosting 10-100x (5-50TB) is not a one time $70 cost, not even close. Youre doing bad math.
It's silly and we havent even touched the hardware update frequency required to store the volume of onchain spam this would introduce.
This are predictions of a future that is already here for everyone else. You originally said it was all about bandwidth before being proved wrong with how absurd that idea is. Now it's "cloud hosting" even though people are running nodes off of raspberry pis and cable modems.
Also you still haven't acknowledged all the other points, like how satoshi envisioned miners mostly running large nodes themselves.
It's silly and we havent even touched the hardware update frequency required to store the volume of onchain spam this would introduce.
This doesn't mean anything, and is just gish galloping.
You may be out of your depth in this discussion. High degree of node centralization would be the outcome of the parameters you are proposing. I'm not surprised your posts get deleted from subreddits. Based on your description, the admins seem to expect users to think about 2nd order effects before posting.
This has been the line for almost 10 years now. Every other cryptocurrency has proved this wrong over and over. Why do you believe this in the face of overwhelming evidence and why do you even think non mining nodes matter? It's clear from your other messages that you don't understand the difference between non mining nodes and mining nodes.
Here is the most important question though - where are you getting your information? I know you didn't come to these conclusions yourself, because you say the exact same ridiculous things as anyone who only reads /r/bitcoin. If it isn't from there where is it and why won't you link it?
>Layer 1 scaling is poor design. Larger blockchain = less nodes due to more expensive hardware requirements = more centralization.
>A $10/month VPS will have a 1 gigabit connection.
>Larger blocks = more bandwidth and hd space = more time to download and fully validate.
>You originally said it was all about bandwidth before being proved wrong with how absurd that idea is. Now it's "cloud hosting" even though people are running nodes off of raspberry pis and cable modems.
If you continuously misrepresent what was said a few posts ago then I can tell this conversation is going nowhere and is a waste of time. You were the one that brought up vps pricing and hosting.
I will move on now since it is clear you are out of your depth but good luck trying to change bitcoin. Just know there is good reason nobody will adopt your shortsighted ideas regardless of where you post them, reddit or elsewhere.
You were the one that brought up vps pricing and hosting.
And you're response was "what about 100x the traffic" and the answer is, it would still work.
If you continuously misrepresent what was said a few posts ago
This didn't happen. All these conversations are the same because you're getting your information from the same place as other people saying the same thing. If a whole bunch of people say 1 + 1 = 3, it's pretty obvious they didn't all arrive at that conclusion independently.
Why do you think non-mining nodes are so important?
Why won't you link to where you got this idea in the first place?
Why aren't you acknowledging all the parts of the bitcoin white paper that contradicts what you're saying?
Also think about how much your arguments shifted. First it was 'bandwidth' and 'diskspace'. When I show you that's absurd you move to sync times. When I point out that you are talking about 1% CPU usage, your own numbers (two days over 13 years) back up what I'm saying and that lots of other currencies have already done what you're saying is impossible you move on to more inane arguments and finally say that you've already proved everything.
I will move on now since it is clear you are out of your depth
Right, the person who gave you a mountain of evidence, has read the server source code, has actually read the white paper (it's only a few pages) and understands the current state of other cryptocurrencies is out of their depth and you (who has given no actual evidence or a single external link to anything) is somehow an authority.
This is delusion and we both know it. Link evidence for anything, link to where you 'learned' what you know. Back up what you're saying in any way at all.
Decentralization of a currency doesn't mean or have to do with development, that is a separate issue. Still, whoever controls github commits is going to control the reference implementation and that isn't many people.
Decentralization refers to being able to use money electronically without any third party's permission. All the rest of this are obvious talking points to try to redefine bitcoin as more unique than it is. It was always completely possible to copy everything and modify any part of it. Part of the excitement is that there is actual competition in currencies.
Non mining nodes ensure transactions/blocks followed certain rules. When attached to wallets and services, that means much more than "just relaying blocks".
This part is just a straight lie and someone has grossly mislead you. Non mining blocks have nothing to do with making blocks or deciding anything. All they can do is relay blocks that the miner decide. This is like someone printing books, those books being sold on amazon and a hundred other stores, then someone arguing that a single library deciding not to carry a book has any bearing on that book being created.
3. Layer 1 scaling is poor design. Larger blockchain = less nodes due to more expensive hardware requirements = more centralization. BSV and BCH are mostly dead because of getting this wrong, no debate about it.
When people say things like this it's obvious that they only get information from /r/bitcoin and don't have understanding beyond the heavily curated narrative there. Do you ever stop to think about why other cryptocurrencies don't need a second layer? Do you think the optimal throughput is a few kilobytes per second worth of transactions for the whole world? It all has to be synced on the main chain anyway. A second layer is a solution in search of a problem.
Larger blockchain = less nodes due to more expensive hardware requirements
Have you ever done the math on this? I can never believe people keep repeating something so obviously wrong. Bitcoin runs at dialup speed. A $10 per month VPS literally runs at 50,000 times the speed that the bitcoin network does. There have been times when average transaction costs spiked so high one transaction fee could pay for the hard drive space and vps time to host a node for months. The craziest thing here is that nodes don't even really matter. The miners can broadcast blocks themselves and anyone can sync with the chain if they want.
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