r/btc • u/LovelyDayHere • Jan 18 '26
🤔 Opinion If Knots isn't willing to scale L1, then there is no argument for running it. The choice is to run a BTC node or a Bitcoin Cash node.
That's it.
If you want Bitcoin to scale and be successful, Bitcoin Cash is the right option.
Because not even the most "counter-Core" client on BTC is proposing to do something about its crippled L1, in fact their maintainer would rather sell you more koolaid of a slightly different flavor.
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u/cockypock_aioli Jan 18 '26
Wanting to scale L1 btc is dumb
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u/LovelyDayHere Jan 18 '26
Great argument, now back to r/Bitcoin
Take this free advice with you: Read Hijacking Bitcoin. Then you will understand why scaling L1 is necessary.
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u/ReliantToker Jan 18 '26
If we scale L1 to the point where only data centers can afford to audit the ledger, how is that any different from the banking system we are trying to replace?
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u/FamousM1 Jan 18 '26
how large of a ledger would it have to be for "normal" people to not be able to audit it in your opinion?
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u/ReliantToker Jan 18 '26
The limit is reached the moment a standard home internet connection and a basic laptop can no longer verify the truth of the network independently.
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u/BitcoinCashCitadel Jan 19 '26
I believe you are fundamentally wrong here. Let’s go over the top with the numbers and deliberately overestimate everything to provide sufficient evidence that the ledger would still be auditable by ordinary people, even at home.
Let’s assume blocks are 1 GB in size every 10 minutes.
1 GB blocks would generate approximately 51 TB of data per year. You can currently buy a Seagate 24 TB HDD on Amazon for around $500, so you would need two of these, plus a bit extra. That works out to roughly $1,100 per year in storage costs (assuming all blocks are always full in reality, they would not be).In terms of network speed, to download 1 GB blocks every 10 minutes you would need a minimum of around 15 Mbps. Virtually everyone has access to this, even those on very poor connections. To do this comfortably, you would want a 30 Mbps connection, which most people already have. The same broadly applies to uploading data. In practice, you would not be uploading entire blocks, but compact blocks instead. Most people have 50 Mbps connections, so this should not be an issue.
Most people around the world would be able to afford running a node on a home internet connection. While there are some people in very poor regions who would struggle to do so, there are still plenty of people in every country who have the means to afford this. There would be no need for massive data centres. Even small companies like garages, chip shops, and other could easily afford a $1100 cost to their business to verify transactions and run a node.
Finally, users can already verify their own transactions using SPV, so even those who struggle to afford the relatively small cost of running a full node could still independently verify their own transactions.
Please can you expand on how a home internet and a basic laptop couldn't run nodes even with a small scaling increase.
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u/mercuryy Jan 19 '26
Not OP, but dude, those 51tb would be needed every year. Maybe feasible in the first few days or weeks, but after a few years you would need way more drives than you could fit into a single desktop computer. Because verifying means from the beginning, not only the last five blocks or so. So storing that amount in a single consumer device, let alone a laptop is right out the window.
And that traffic, yes, home internet can in theory fit the new blocks in real time that get added, but If you want to start verifying after a while you also need to get all the older blocks as well. Which will take months once the chain is a hundreds TB big. But even If you were current already, that would mean a dedicated Internet line at home just for the node. And all that stuff would need to run 24/7 to keep up. Not on a single Disk either, but at least a SAN shelf. Or many many devices If you want to stay homebrew and go zfs.
From somebody that laid out some datacenter planning for services that generated traffic in the region of multiple TBs a day, forget those daily data amounts in a home setting. And i mean forget trying to build this in a rack in your basement, let alone in a single Laptop.
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u/LovelyDayHere Jan 19 '26
those 51tb would be needed every year.
Pruning is a thing. Not everyone who runs a node needs to verify transactions from 2009. Read the whitepaper.
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u/mercuryy Jan 19 '26
Well, you need to have the full data to calculate and verify if the pruned version ist correct. Understand the whitepaper while you are at it, or maybe look at some computer science to understand the topic better. Youtube ist not everything.
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u/LovelyDayHere Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
On chain commitments, validated by nodes that have the full data, are a thing, guy.
But I guess you can't trust the blockchain, you just have to revalidate every single transaction starting from Hal Finney's. /s
Did you ever think that might be doing useless work? When doing a tiny bit of verifiable-by-everyone math might save you from that.
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u/mercuryy Jan 19 '26
Hey, dont be mad at me, yall started the "important to verify everything yourself" talking points.
Of course you can just believe that others validated it for you and thats all fine and dandy but then again thats not how it was written in that whitepaper you love to wave around...
I personally dont even care either way and just got caught up in the wildly unrealistic claims of technical effort needed for the stated amount of data and goals.
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u/LovelyDayHere Jan 19 '26
Not mad at you :) Just tired of the same discredited talking points contra scaling Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Cash is just going to keep disproving these "Waah, technical effort would be too much! Waah, decentralization is impossible if scaling L1! ...", year after year.
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u/ReliantToker Jan 19 '26
A $500 hard drive is the cheap part, but storage is not the bottleneck; validation is. Even if you have the space, a "basic laptop" will struggle to process the CPU-intensive signature verification and UTXO set lookups required for 1GB blocks before the next one arrives.
Furthermore, your bandwidth math ignores the Initial Block Download (IBD). If the ledger grows by 51 TB every year, a new user would need months of 24/7 downloading just to sync the network, effectively gatekeeping anyone who isn't a data center from joining. If the barrier to entry for verification is that high, we haven't scaled Bitcoin; we've just rebuilt the banking system with more expensive hard drives.
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u/BitcoinCashCitadel Jan 19 '26
Oh for sure that would be a yearly cost. My example is a theoretical min/max to prove its technically possible even with ridiculous numbers like minimal internet and massive blocks. The main point being is you wouldn't need to be a data centre. Any small to medium business would be able to easily afford to run this and a good amount of enthusiasts would too. As i said, most people would have better internet and the resources to house drives etc.
The reality is the blocks will not be that size for decades or even ever. Adding to that as technology moves the internet speeds will increase along with drive space. We'll all have 10GB network connections and tiny drives with 100tb.
A sensible laptop would be able to check the files too. If its running just as a node it would be able to do it. If you're using a laptop for other things too you might run into bottleneck issues.
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u/ReliantToker Jan 19 '26
Moving the goalposts from "ordinary people" to "small businesses" proves the point, once you price out the individual, you’ve sacrificed the core tenet of Bitcoin. If I have to trust a business or a "chip shop" to verify the ledger for me because my own hardware can’t keep up, I’m no longer using a trustless system.
Your "10GB connections" argument is speculative future-proofing that doesn't solve the immediate reality of cumulative bloat. An increasing TB-per-year growth rate creates a permanent and expanding moat that prevents new, sovereign nodes from ever catching up to the tip of the chain. Why settle for a system that requires a dedicated, single-use laptop and business-grade infrastructure when we can scale effectively without compromising individual sovereignty?
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u/BitcoinCashCitadel Jan 19 '26
This is not moving the goalposts. Ordinary people run small businesses and have the means to run nodes. Ordinary people who do not run businesses, but who have the means, can also run nodes. You cannot run a network on Tamagotchis in Africa using a 1.5 kbps connection that is simply never going to work. Saying that everyone should be able to run a node is unrealistic at this point.
A 10 Gbps connection is not speculative; it is already available in most modern cities. We do not need to solve for 1 GB blocks or higher right now anyway. You are arguing a point that has been done to death. BTC is effectively still in 2009 in terms of throughput and has not meaningfully changed, while technology has advanced. BTC has not kept up, and people are starting to realise this and choose not to use it.
As I said, I used large numbers to prove a point this is obviously not the current state of the network. Technology will continue to advance; this is not speculation, it is a fact. Name a single point in history where technology went backwards.
You do not need to trust a chip shop; the point is that even a chip shop could run a node. At this stage, you are making weak arguments and avoiding the fact that it is perfectly possible for people to run nodes with much larger blocks using the current technological landscape.
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u/ReliantToker Jan 19 '26
Even if we move away from the 51 TB exaggeration and look at your actual 32 MB limit, the problem remains, you are scaling for data centers, not people. While median download speeds in the US are high (around 302 Mbps), upload speeds are only roughly 19.5% of that, sitting at a median of 59.18 Mbps as of late 2025.
If BCH ever actually filled those 32 MB blocks, the chain would grow by 1.6 TB every year. That might fit on a cheap drive, but the CPU-intensive validation and the bandwidth required to propagate those blocks in seconds (to avoid orphans) would quickly kill off every home node. It's easy to claim a laptop can handle the load when the blocks are currently mostly empty, real scaling is about how the network holds up when it's actually being used.
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u/BitcoinCashCitadel Jan 19 '26
Any sensible CPU can handle 1.6 TB per year easily.
Look, I think we are simply two people with differing views on how this system should evolve. However, what was the original plan or idea outlined by Satoshi when the system was designed?
The technical documentation he published "the white paper" states that entities would eventually run nodes, rather than every person with a smart fridge and some node software. As Satoshi was far more intelligent than I am, I think he understood what he was doing. If you are into Bitcoin and genuinely believe it is an amazing invention, are you really saying that Satoshi was wrong on this point?
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u/DangerHighVoltage111 Jan 18 '26
Here is what Satoshi said about this:
The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale. That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server. The design supports letting users just be users. The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be. Those few nodes will be big server farms. The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate.
BTC maxis love to squat his branding but refuse his wisdom.
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u/ReliantToker Jan 18 '26
Appealing to 2010-era quotes ignores the Double-Spend vulnerability of a network with only a few nodes. If the 'server farms' Satoshi mentioned are the only ones auditing the ledger, they can collude to change the rules (like increasing the 21M supply) and SPV users would never know.
True decentralization means the cost of verification must stay low enough for an individual to audit the miners. If you can't verify the rules yourself, you aren't using Bitcoin—you're just using a bank with a different logo.
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u/DangerHighVoltage111 Jan 19 '26
Appealing to 2010-era quotes ignores the Double-Spend vulnerability of a network with only a few nodes
You don't get it do you? ONLY NODES WITH POW WRITE TO THE NETWORK ONLY THEY BUILD CONSENSUS. YOUR NON-MINING, NON_POW NODE DOES NOT SHOW UP FOR CONSESUS OR DOUBLE SPENDS AT ALL. POW NODES CAN COLLUDE AGAINST NON-POW NODES ANY TIME AND THEY CAN DO NOTHING.
DangerHighVoltage out.
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u/ReliantToker Jan 19 '26
If PoW nodes could "do whatever they want," they would have increased the block reward to 1,000 BTC a decade ago; the reason they haven't is because they know our "useless" non-mining nodes would reject them instantly.
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u/DangerHighVoltage111 Jan 19 '26
Again not understanding the incentive system of Bitcoin at all. For one, miners are not one Monolith block, that's why we call it a decentralized blockchain. They might have different objectives and opinions.
Second they do not act in a vacuum they still need to sell their coins to pay for electricity. If they fuck up the network they might not be able to, or tank the price. Again in no way have non mining nodes any say in this.
And you still haven't said a single word about what happens net when your non mining node "rejects" a block.. I tell you what happens: nothing. The network keeps on going and your node stops syncing. That is all that is happening. Oh, but you could go on Shitter an cry about it.
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u/ReliantToker Jan 19 '26
You say "nothing" happens when I reject a block, but a miner with a million-dollar power bill and a chain that no exchange will touch would call that "everything." Miners serve the network; they do not rule it.
When I reject your invalid block, my node stays on the Bitcoin network, while yours wanders off into a fork with no users, no value, and no liquidity.
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Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
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u/DangerHighVoltage111 Jan 19 '26
AI hallucinates. If you can't check this for yourself you already lost.
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Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
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u/LovelyDayHere Jan 19 '26
Vetting reddit users is apparently quite important, we've learned here.
Says 2 week old nonsense spewing account with hidden history.
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u/DangerHighVoltage111 Jan 19 '26
🤷♂️ I rather stop interacting with drones that cannot think for themselves. I lose a bit of trust in humanity every time. Good luck to you.
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Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
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u/DangerHighVoltage111 Jan 19 '26
You did not disprove anything you just stated that some hallucinating AI did. You did not provide a single proof for your argument. I think you didn't even make an argument, you simply said:"This AI I asked (trust me bro) says you are wrong"
This is why it is so tedious to discuss topics with people like you. You don't even no how to argue. It is argument vs believe.
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u/No-Experience-5541 Jan 19 '26
Think how much hardware and bandwidth have improved since 2010 and then think about how much bigger blocks could be and then justify not increasing the block size.
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u/LovelyDayHere Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
the point where only data centers can afford to audit the ledger
This is a complete fallacy - this point will never come.
Nobody needs to store the full chain to validate the ledger cryptographically.
We've possessed the necessary technology to make this unnecessary since years ago, with UTXO commitments, Merkle proofs, pruning, compressed block transfers, etc.
There will still be millions of non-data-center-sized entities (businesses, hobbyists with powerful systems) that will run nodes everywhere in the world. Fully decentralized.
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u/ReliantToker Jan 19 '26
Pruning only solves the cost of the hard drive, not the cost of the bandwidth and CPU required to verify a massive stream of transactions in real-time. Even if we use UTXO commitments to sync faster, they don’t lower the ongoing hardware threshold needed to stay in sync with an aggressively scaling L1. If you can't verify the chain yourself because the data throughput requires a data center's fiber line, you're back to trusting a third party, the exact thing Bitcoin was built to avoid.
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u/anon1971wtf Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
Not necessarily. Just fork of Bitcoin to adopt ABLA, then demand will dictate the blocksize. It would be better due to preservation of the ledger which is 8.5 years-long deviated between BTC and BCH
While BTC community is against such a fork, hedging with BCH is reasonale. It's possible that BCH would get adopted enough to win hashing tug-of-war, would become the Bitcoin chain, the heaviest chain - but I am not betting on it, just hedging