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95 sats \ 4 replies \ @corncob 13 Dec 2022 \ on: Daily discussion thread
Will bitcoin ever increase the block size as adoption increases and onchain txn become extremely cost prohibitive? I've been pondering the question the last few weeks for some reason. I suspect no, but I'm trying to think through 50 years from now when (hopefully) everybody uses BTC/Lightning. Maybe it's a pointless exercise as continued innovation will happen that I can't see today, but just a question I've been wondering.
Never say never.
But an increase does not align with the interests of the "economic nodes" today, so I can't see such a push for an increase until bitcoin has gained traction at a level vastly further than it has today.
There could be second layers being sufficient which result in on-chain bitcoin being used only for channel open/close and settlement transactions (which might be the case if fees per trx end up in the $50+ range). Currently, $50/trx produces even more revenue to the miners than does the 6.25 BTC per block award subsidy.
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I don't think the blocksize will increase.
What I do think could be a possibility is that there is a rollup layer so when there are people who need to settle on the basechain its done by rolling up a bunch of tx into one basechain tx for settlement.
Some exchanges are doing a centralized version of this for withdrawals. Combining many withdrawals into one tx to reduce congestion and fees.
ZK rollups could fit this need as it is actively being developed for bitcoin.
Example: 30 years from now you have about 1000 users that want to withdraw lightning sats into cold storage. The lightning tx's get aggrigated into a single ZK rollup TX on the basechain to distribute all the funds to the basechain wallet addresses. This in theory would reduce the need to ever increase the block size on layer one and allow all the raspberry pis in the world to keep on keeping on. :)
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I would remain on the "no" side.
I do believe that the answer to scale is in layers, whether that be Lightning or something else. The base chain facilitates that pretty well at the moment.
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For sure, I agree. I see a few posts here and there on Twitter about what happens if Lightning doesn't succeed. I think it's a good debate to have. I don't currently see alternatives to lightning, but that said I also can't see the future and what else is possible.
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