Bitcoin Status Report - On-Chain Scaling Aug 2016
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Transcript of Bitcoin Status Report - On-Chain Scaling Aug 2016
© Bloq, Inc. Strictly Private and Confidential. All Rights Reserved.
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Enterprise
© Bloq, Inc. Strictly Private and Confidential. All Rights Reserved.
TECHNOLOGY EVOLUTION
PC Era Internet Era Mobile Era Decentralized Era
SemiconductorTechnology
TCP/IP Protocol
SupercomputerIn Your Pocket
BitcoinProtocol
© Bloq, Inc. Strictly Private and Confidential. All Rights Reserved.
9 FACTORS OF BLOCKCHAIN
Trust Shifting Decentralization Automation
Cryptography Permission-less Validity
Immutability Uniqueness Authentication
MACHINE TO MACHINE
PKI LIKE THE INTERNET CONTINUAL SYSTEM SELF & CROSS CHECKING
NO REWRITES NO DOUBLE SPENDINGS EVERY ACTION IS AUTHENTICATED
Approach and Point-of-View
•User centric: What do wallet users experience?
•Kepner-Tregoe method: List data points, advantages & disadvantages
POV• Field Experience - Data from actual users in the field is given more weight.
Background - Block Space Economics
• Fixed supply resource
•Changing Capacity = Changing Supply of a Resource
• Large change, when blocks full:Supply shock.
•Has control of supply of an economic resource ever led to problems, in history?
• Users bid for space inside a block
• Users speculatively bid, attaching Tx fees to Tx prior to sending.
• Fee signaling inherently complex for miners and users; compounded by stupid software.
Background - Economic Actor Tension
• Not centralized vs. decentralized
• Not small blocks vs. large blocks
• Hypothesis:
• Tension: Asset class vs. Payments
• Bitcoin-as-Asset-Class
• Not fee sensitive
• Bitcoins as payments
• Fee sensitive
• Current practice (0conf) vs.Long term (Lightning)
• Emerging blockchain applications
• Fee sensitive
Recent Metrics
•Price $575 (+149%)
•Average Tx Fee: $0.14 (+206%)
• Tx/Day: 225,000 (+63%)
•Difficulty +314%
• Nodes: 4810 (-24%)
• Median block is 98% full
• Econ. transition from “usually not full” to “usually full”
• Number of miners to achieve 95%: 8
365 DAYS
Recent Bitcoin network improvements
•Dynamic Fee Adaptation viaMemory Pool limiting
• signature validation w/ libsecp256k1
•Compact Block Relay
•Child Pays For Parent
•CLTV, CSV: Check-LockTime-Verify
Considering Network Upgrades (forks)
•Consensus rules: Rules everyone on network must follow.
•Process of meta-consensus
•How to change consensus rules?
•Akin to U.S Constitution
• Hard and Soft forks can both:
• Remove existing rules, that users may be following today.
• Add new rules, that users must follow into the future.
Hard Forks
•High user consent
•Clear upgrade path, rules.
•Reduced software complexity
• Fewer software changes req’d;Fewer potential bugs.
•Clear user choice + market path.
• Requires long lead time (est. 3-6mo)
• Disruptive: Not backward compatible;upgrade [probably] required.
• On-going network partition
• Users confused
• Ethereum/ETC example - rushed fork
BENEFITS AND RISKS
Soft Forks
•Miners agree to filter network in new way.
•Backwards compatible upgrade
•Changes require minimal approval
•More features, faster
•Asymmetric: Difficult to reverse
• Rule by tiny, few technocratic elite
• Repeated SF = Repeated collusion
• Increased software complexity
• Not opt-in — Entire network locked-in
• Asymmetric: Difficult to challenge
• User node security reduced
• Trust, reliance on miners increased
• Ethereum example
BENEFITS AND RISKS
Segregated Witness
•Messaging: “A capacity increase”
•Major
• In general: Foundational
•Solves transaction malleability
•Addresses UTXO cost
•Powerful upgradeable script vector
• Lightning enabler
• First economic soft fork; New precedents
• Voluntary upgrade — Long transition
• Capacity unlikely before January 2017
• Little user-visible benefit vs. complexity
• Transitional complexity: Wallet/exchange/up-layer software must know two txid’s, two addressing paths, and more.
• Economic complexity: “Two buckets”, new pricing, new fee bidding.
BENEFITS AND RISKS
Segregated Witness: economic changes
•Base block space size augmented by
• Extended block space size
•UTXO discount (75%)
•Analogy: Two buckets of different size, each filled with water at different rates, prices.
Segregated Witness and predictability
Attribute Predictable?
Block period Yes
Block reward, BTC Yes
Block space (1M) Yes
BIP109 Block space Yes
SegWit capacity, bytes No
SegWit capacity, calendar date No
Conclusions•Block space: Replace humans w/ algos ASAP (both BIP109 and SegWit fail, here)
•A tiny few choosing bitcoin economics is anti bitcoin’s ethos.
•Soft forks are neither opt-in nor risk-free.
•Soft forks introduce layers of long term complexity, as multiple systems (old & new) must co-exist in router (bitcoind) and upper layer (wallet/exchange/db) for years.
•Comm.: Give both sides of an analysis to users.
• Time has real costs: Consider the impact of failing to increase capacity on existing users, businesses.
•SegWit is a useful + complex foundational change - Should be hard fork.
Thank You!
Jeff Garzik Co-Founder | [email protected]/WeChat: @JGarzik
Matthew Roszak Co-Founder | [email protected]
Twitter/WeChat: @MatthewRoszak
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