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Comment by hnolable | Hacker News Reader

If Eric was serious about this he would have targeted this post at chinese miners who are stalling on activating segwit (which is a 2x blocksize increase and the foundation for instant & nearly free txs via the Lightning Network).

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Segwit is not a 2x block size increase. That is marketing spin that Blockstream started spreading to try and fool people into supporting their agenda w/o having to compromise and raise the block size. Segwit does _not_ increase the block size in the sense that people are discussing and in some cases it might even make the transaction throughput much worse than the current system.

The whole reason people want bigger blocks is for higher transaction throughput on-chain. Segwit doesn't deliver that.

https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5f507l/core_is_the_...

SegWit allows twice as many transactions as soon as miners and users update their software. How is that not a capacity increase?

https://segwit.org/is-segwit-a-block-size-increase-705df6a87...

You can play semantical games but segwit gives about 2x onchain capacity. And the only thing holding it up is a group of chinese miners/pools. Anyone truly wanting more onchain capacity should be engaging those miners/pools.

Of course that's not really what people bitching about tx fees want.

That's my point exactly people calling segwit a block size increase are playing semantic games. Miners and devs met a year ago and agreed on a path forward of segwit+hardfork blocksize increase to 2MB. Now they are trying to get people to activate segwit w/o a 2mb increase. It's not a mystery why this is happening and it isn't just Chinese miners that oppose it.

You admitted that "The whole reason people want bigger blocks is for higher transaction throughput on-chain."

And said that "Segwit doesn't deliver that".

Segwit delivers that.

The link I provided in my first response to you clearly shows that segwit can result in much lower transaction throughput.

The comment you linked to refers to blocks that were specifically made to be big using non-standard scripts that are larger than usual.

For the current mix of transactions happening on the bitcoin network, SegWit will give us an effective block size of 2.1MB (or 2.1x transactions compared to today), and a bit more over time as people start using more advanced scripts.

According to the video below SegWit creates 4x effective transaction space in the same 1MB block. I assume that is a theoretical ceiling unlikely to be achievable in reality?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzBAG2Jp4bg

No, it creates 4x effective transaction space in blocks that can now be as large as 4MB. It does not compress data more efficiently or makes transactions smaller in any way, it is a block size increase in every sense of the word.

The only ones who see this as 1MB block are old nodes that didn't upgrade to a segwit-compatible client. But for nodes that do upgrade, the block is simply larger.

But you're right in that 4MB is the maximum theoretical ceiling. That 2.1MB number I mentioned is what we get according to kind of transactions that we have on the network today. It'll go a bit higher as bitcoin users start using more advanced scripts, but not by much.

Erm, targeted at? You mean he would have, what, written it in Chinese?

Note he said most businesses are looking for Segwit activation + a hard fork blocksize increase (ours included). The "Chinese miners" have expressed that desire as well. Segwit is stalling because it's not what the market is asking for.

SegWit is supported by over 100 businesses and projects, and pretty much by ~everyone in the technical bitcoin community. It definitely is what the market is asking for.

https://bitcoincore.org/en/segwit_adoption/

The market also includes miners. Do they appear excited to activate Segwit? As I understand it, they're waiting for a HF blocksize proposal to go with it.

Many of the businesses in that list that preparing for Segwit, but would still prefer that scenario as well (including many of those with the largest user bases).

Lastly, I'm in the technical bitcoin community. I agree most of us are in support of Segwit- just the show of hands at Satoshi Roundtable this year made that clear- but many of us would also like to see a block size increase, and the dev / miner impasse ended.

EDIT: Segwit signalling by miners is currently < 25%. https://blockchain.info/charts/bip-9-segwit

Segwit requires 95% of miners to activate. Currently about 75% of hash power is controlled by a group of chinese miners/pools. This is about the % of hashing power that is missing for Segwit to activate.

Aware of how Segwit activation works, thanks. I'm speaking to the miners' motivations. They've been asking for a simple blocksize increase for quite some time. See the HK agreement if you don't get the politics.

Yes that's the issue here, the miners are playing politics by trying to flex their power. But no one is willing to play petty games. There's an obvious win for everyone sitting on the table ready to go. Political games will be ignored.

The Core devs signed an agreement with these miners a year ago in Hong Kong, and the agreement was broken. Here are the consequences.

Clearly, politics won't be ignored- or Segwit would be on track for activation.

The part you're missing is that Bitcoin is totally fine if it never changed from how it is today. Anonymity will come via Tumblebit. Lightning network can already work even without segwit.

Segwit never getting activated may even be a good thing. It will show everyone that Bitcoin has crystalized and can never be changed via petty human emotion. This was always Bitcoin's true selling point and we may be about to demonstrate it.

So yes, politics can and will be ignored.

Not at all. Like many in the space, I've had to consider and come to terms with the fact that this might be the best version of Bitcoin we have, forever.

But that's not politics being ignored- this is still a group of humans who couldn't come to an agreement after much politicking. That's politics being exhausted.

I do share your optimism that we have a system that can survive gridlock. It just won't fulfill much of its early promise.

The core developers have been playing political games for 2 years.

They've stopped all important changes that people are asking for, so now the shoe is on the other foot.

Play stupid games win stupid prizes. The core devs will get nothing unless they compromise.

> for instant & nearly free txs via the Lightning Network

It's amazing we're putting all our hopes on a technology best labeled as vaporware. You make it out like it's readily available but the fundamental problem of decentralized routing hasn't been solved and it may even be unsolvable.

The simple fact is that blockstream is pushing segwit precisely for it being a necessity for lightning network, not because it's a good thing for bitcoin.

The correct solution would have been a blocksize increase long ago but the same people supporting segwit has been actively blocking all attempts at a blocksize increase previously. Why the sudden change? As another comment said, "Follow the money, it's not baffling at all."

This political argument that it's all just a plot by Blockstream is what is causing the division where the technical benefits of segwit are clear to anybody who knows what they are talking about.

As soon as it became about people and BS conspiracies instead of technical rational solutions it was only going to end up in slagging match.

You're dodging my technical argument well yourself. Segwit implemented as a soft fork isn't clearly full of benefits. But it seems you're just appealing to authority.

I didn't write the and test code myself so you can label that as appealing to authority all you like but I have looked into it and understand the benefits of moving the witness to a subtree of the merkle root so that it can be dropped when it is no longer needed as well as the other changes that are included in the update that allow further soft fork changes enough to see the benefits. I don't just accept someone saying it is good or bad.

Can you explain why such an obvious refactor that is backward and forward compatible isn't a clear benefit?

No it isn't sufficient and won't instantly increase the transaction throughput but the the arguments against it that I've heard are weak and almost all political and could also be argued as appeal to a different authority.

There are two visions of what people see as scaling and are pushing for, on-chain and off-chain. Segwit helps both so being against it can only be politically motivated.

That's good!

I found this article describes the problem well: https://medium.com/the-publius-letters/segregated-witness-a-...

I'm not against segwit but I and many other have problems with segwit as a soft-fork. The push for a soft-fork segwit seems to be politically motivated.

> Can you explain why such an obvious refactor that is backward and forward compatible isn't a clear benefit?

If seen as a blocksize increase it isn't backwards compatible as old transactions will not get the benefit. It is also not transparent as all wallets needs to be updated to support the new transaction format. No such extra effort is needed for a blocksize increase.

It is in fact necessary to push for on-chain and off-chain scaling, nobody is against that. The position for "big blockers" has been the same for years: we need actual bigger blocks. See: https://medium.com/@johnblocke/the-importance-of-clear-defin...

The Lightning Network is not bitcoin. The people who are fighting against block size increase are the same people pushing segwit. While there is nothing inherently wrong with segwit and the Lightning Network, they are ignoring the most important improvement to Bitcoin itself, which would be a pure block size increase.

But SegWit is a block size increase. It allows twice as many on-chain transactions by making the blocks twice as big.

This "SegWit vs block-size increase" talk makes no sense to me.

https://segwit.org/is-segwit-a-block-size-increase-705df6a87...

The block size increase with segwit is marginal and a side effect. It's a complicated feature that is meant for purposes other than block size increase. Don't obfuscate the issue. I'm talking about a simple tweaking of a parameter to increase block size.

> The block size increase with segwit is marginal

It's not marginal. According to the mix of current transactions on the bitcoin network, SegWit gives us an effective block size of 2.1MB. Over 2 times more transactions compared to today, which is more than what Bitcoin Classic was pushing for until not too long ago.

https://www.weusecoins.com/eli-segwit/

https://segwit.org/is-segwit-a-block-size-increase-705df6a87...

> and a side effect.

Indeed it is! The main goal of SegWit is fixing the malleability problem, everything else is an bonus.

The other bonuses are pretty awesome themselves, too:

https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/

> I'm talking about a simple tweaking of a parameter to increase block size.

A "simple" block-size increase requires an hard-fork, which is anything but simple. Hardforks requires a network-wide coordinated upgrade where everyone updates on the same time, at the risk of a currency split and old nodes being open to attacks if not everyone upgrades in time. Hardforks are highly risky and very very slow to deploy safely.

I recently presented some slides on this topic, the relevant part starts here:

https://www.docdroid.net/TouvFPl/embassy-future-politics-feb...

The same slides, shown as a summary image: https://twitter.com/TraceMayer/status/829558034351398916

https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/#block...

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