EFTA02489777.pdf

From: Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2015 12:37 PM To: Jeffrey Epstein Subject: Bitcoin is on the verge of a constitutional crisis Seen this? > Bitcoin is on the verge of a constitutional crisis By Timothy B. Lee > Aug 18 2015 > <http://www.vox.com/2015/8/18/9168977/bitcoin-constitutional-crisis> > The Bitcoin community is facing one of the most momentous decisions in its=six-year history. The Bitcoin network is running out of spare capacity, and=two increasingly divided camps disagree about what, if anything, to do abou= the problem. > If these two sides fail to reach a consensus, the Bitcoin network could =80 according to one side, at least — slowly grind to a halt as t=e number of transactions exceeds the network's capacity to process them. Ev=n worse, if a fix for this problem is forced through prematurely, it could s=lit the Bitcoin network in two and permanently damage public trust in the n=twork. > The argument is the closest thing the Bitcoin community has had to a const=tutional crisis. Bitcoiners are trying to figure out who, if anyone, has th= authority to make technical changes to the Bitcoin network's foundations. 5= far, neither side in the increasingly heated debate has shown much willing=ess to compromise. > The Bitcoin network is running out of capacity > The Bitcoin network processes transactions in units called "blocks," which=are created about every 10 minutes. To prevent malicious parties from clogg=ng up the system with spam, the original Bitcoin software limited the size o= each block to one megabyte, which corresponds to a few thousand transactio=s. When Bitcoin was created in 2009, that left plenty of room for growth. > But Bitcoin usage has been growing, bringing the network closer and closer=to its maximum capacity. Right now, the network is only 30 to 40 percent fu=l on average, but it sometimes gets congested during periods of high demand= causing delays for users. And if current growth continues, things could ge= a lot worse in the next year or two, as the network gets closer to 100 per=ent capacity. > And if Bitcoin is going to become a mainstream payment platform, it's goin= to have to grow a lot more. Bitcoin handles tens of thousands of transacti=ns per day. Visa handles tens of millions. To compete with Visa and other m=instream payment technologies, the network is going to need more capacity. > Changing the limit is easy — if everyone agrees > The limit is just a number in the Bitcoin software. If that number were ch=nged to a higher value, the Bitcoin network would have more capacity. > The difficulty is that this only works if everyone agrees to raise the lim=t. The Bitcoin network is built on consensus. If some parts of the Bitcoin n=twork raise the limit and others don't, the network would be split in two. H=ving two EFTA_R1_01610458 EFTA02489777 competing versions of the Bitcoin network running simultaneously w=uld be catastrophic. It would destroy trust in the Bitcoin network, since u=ers could never be sure which transactions were official. And it would like=y cause the value of bitcoins — the unit of currency — to p=unge, as people questioned whether the network had a future at all. > [snip] <?xml version=.0" encoding=TF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.O.dtd"> <plist version=.0"> <dict> <key>conversation-id</key> <integer>107008</integer> <key>date-last-viewed</key> <integer>0</integer> <key>date-received</key> <integer>1439987831</integer> <key>flags</key> <integer>8590195713</integer> <key>gmail-label-ids</key> <array> <integer>6</integer> <integer>2</integer> </array> <key>remote-id</key> <string>535563</string> </dict> </plist> 2 EFTA_R1_01610459 EFTA02489778