Sunday 29 January 2017

Modifying luke-jr's hard fork proposal: (BIP-?) Safer and growing block size limit

The original proposal: http://bit.ly/2krhip2

It's a 17.7% annual increase, with the following caveats:

  • It reduces the max blocksize below 1MB, if activated before 6/2024.
  • It increases the max blocksize above 1MB only after that date.

I propose the following changes

  • Keep max blocksize at 1MB until 1/2019
  • Start increasing the max blocksize after that date.

I believe almost two years should be enough time to prepare for a hard fork like this.

To illustrate what that would mean for bitcoin I made this chart.

  • The blue line shows the actual max. blocksize.

  • The red line shows the "effective blocksize" in terms of what it means for transaction capacity comparable to today's blocksize bytes, with the following assumptions:

    • SegWit get's activated in 1/2018 and increases efficiency by 110% (latest estimate I know, based on current usage data)
    • Schnorr signatures go live in 1/2019 and increase efficiency by another 40% (Eric Lombrozo's estimate)

I think any proposal based on /u/luke-jr's BIP is to be viewed as the new baseline, replacing the 1MB hardcoded limit, and not something that's necessarily set in stone for the next 40 years.


Year Blocksize Est. eff. Blocksize (SW+Schnorr)
2019 1MB 2.9MB
2023 2MB 5.6MB
2027 4MB 11.2MB
2031 8MB 22.4MB
2035 16MB 44.9MB
2040 32MB 89.7MB


Submitted January 29, 2017 at 07:16PM by supermari0 http://bit.ly/2kH4CKg

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