On Wednesday, August 24, 2011 11:12:10 AM Gavin Andresen wrote: > So, if we are going to have new releases that are incompatible with > old clients why not do things right in the first place, implement or > enable opcodes so the new bitcoin addresses can be small, and schedule > a block chain split for N months from now.
If a block chain split is to occur, it makes sense to try to fix as many problems as possible: - Replace hard limits (like 1 MB maximum block size) with something that can dynamically adapt with the times. Maybe based on difficulty so it can't be gamed? - Adjust difficulty every block, without limits, based on a N-block sliding window. I think this would solve the issue when the hashrate drops overnight, but maybe also add a block time limit, or perhaps include the "current block" in the difficulty calculation? - 21 million really isn't enough if Bitcoin ever takes off, even with 100,000,000 units per BTC. Replacing the "Satoshi" 64-bit integers with "Satoshi" variable-size fractions (ie, infinite numerator + denominator) would create infinite possibilities of future divison, allowing people to not only do nBTC and pBTC, but also exact 1/3 of any quantity. Transaction size would go up based on the number of primes involved in an amount, which would encourage discarding annoying primes in transaction fees. - Standardize everything on network (big) endian. I'm sure others can think of other chain-splitting fixes that wouldn't be too much work to fix. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EMC VNX: the world's simplest storage, starting under $10K The only unified storage solution that offers unified management Up to 160% more powerful than alternatives and 25% more efficient. Guaranteed. http://p.sf.net/sfu/emc-vnx-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
