Sun Nov 22, 2015 2:51 pm

Hi. Thank you very much for doing this AMA.



I would like to focus on block size issues. We can clearly see that blocks are filling up and that transactions will get delayed (or worse) when legitimate transaction volume exceeds capacity.



Your BlockPriority offering can, I think, be seen in this light.



1.

Do you want to wait for 'consensus' (whatever that means) from Scaling Bitcoin? Do you think there is time, as one of the SB goals is to NOT make any decisions? Would you support BIP101 (to my knowledge the only tested solution that can be implemented today) if SB does not meet a clear deliverable, and what would that deliverable be?



2.

I expect other companies to also implement BlockPriority type solutions. I also expect companies to collaborate and include each other's blocks first. So no per transaction fee market, but a contract processing market. Do you agree? Do you think this leads to more centralization? If so, do you think that small blocks lead to centralization and large blocks to decentralization?



Thanks!

Thank you for your question about the block sizes debate.I am looking forward to attending the Scaling Bitcoin conference in Hong Kong next month. I think it’s good for the community to come together to discuss these really important topics. I hope that decisions do get made, or at least that all parties get to voice their opinions and concerns.In terms of the BIP 100 vs 101 debate, our preference is for BIP 100. Of course, that depends on the viability of it being implemented. I haven’t caught up with the latest in terms of which solutions are ready for deployment. Regardless, I firmly believe that the community will come together behind a solution and upgrade the network to overcome this blocksize issue.We launched BlockPriority as a service to BTCC customers to help prioritize their blockchain transactions when they use BTCC services. We have this amazing mining pool asset and we wanted to make more use of it -- BlockPriority is the result. Right now, I think it’s still too early to tell if this results in more centralization or more decentralization. I am still waiting to see how the overall market develops. Will the bitcoin ecosystem become more centralized over time? Or will it remain completely decentralized? BTCC is and will always be a centralized entity, as we are structured as a company. We strongly support the decentralized nature of bitcoin, but we are a centralized entity doing this. Smaller blocks lead to blocks being more contentious resources, and hence more centralization, and, likewise, larger blocks lead to more resources for everyone, and more decentralization. However, you can also show the opposite: larger blocks lead to vastly more resources to running a full node, and hence even more centralization for who will have the full resources to keep an up-to-date copy of the bitcoin ledger. This is all a healthy debate, but I still have not made up my mind about which direction leads to more or less centralization. All I know is that I love bitcoin because it is indeed decentralized, and that anyone can choose to participate in this ecosystem without needing prior permission.