I was thinking of creating a deadalus wallet, but I got slightly dismayed, first by the whopping 60gb of blockchain I need to download, but also the fact that It’s growing fairly rapidly too, is below right?
88kb per block and 3 blocks/minute
60m24h88kb*3b/m=380160 So, is the chain actually growing with 380MB every day? o_O
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I think it would be really neat if you, at some point, could sort of ”close” the eldger, then create a new one to which you copy all that’s needed from the old one. Then you can archive the old one. It would save a lot of space. How many years of history do you really need?
It would only grow that much if all blocks where maximally filled.
But, yes, it is growing pretty heavily lately.
At least for end users, IOG is working on Mithril (https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/10/29/mithril-a-stronger-and-lighter-blockchain-for-better-efficiency/), which – it seems – will have something to not save the whole blockchain anymore.
Why they have to derive a whole new protocol with other types of nodes etc. pp. for that, is beyond me.
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At some point of time, it will be inevitable to have this kind of Snapshots with an Archive and a ledger that only contains changes from there. Mithril seems to address this for clients. The Article does not state the impact for Full Nodes (Block Producers and Relays) which of course also would benefit from such a solution.
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That’s what I am worried about, too.
Pool operators will also need such a solution. And it can be much simpler, not inventing a whole new protocol, just some snapshots and not revalidating from the beginning on each start, but just from the latest snapshot.
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That sounds like the idea that I mentioned. Some time ago, I wrote something about ”closing” the blockchain just like you do with a normal ledger, you crete a new one and then transfer the data you need for the new ledger.
You still need that data, government agencies will want it, but it can now be kept in cold storage on a bluray disc or similar.
It seems pretty straightforward to me, you need to come up with a rule for when this happens. For a short time, there will be no transactions until the new ledger ha been created and distributed. A short maintenance break
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I was thinking about this a long time ago. I think the only way to do it would be to have a chain that is like a ring buffer, have deposits deplete by some amount of the initial balance per week then after 2 years they are empty and drop off the network. Make the depleted funds be the transaction fee. It’d be the antithesis to bitcoin, instead of encouraging hoarding large amounts it’d be a medium of exchange.
I think it’d make a cool project for a sidechain.
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I have an even more radical view.
We should forget about old transactions after 21 years or so.
Why 21 years ? because it’s roughly a human generation time. Starting from that date the money value could start to rust and vanish completely after say another 2 or 3 generations.
Check Silvio Gesell’s (1862-1930) if you want more about the idea rusting money that coming back in the front line of economics as central banks are starting to consider negative interest rates.
Also, canceling debts was already done in antiquity during jubilees. I think that philosophical is idea was to avoid what we see today with the accumulation of wealth in the hand of too few and the increasing inequality that may in the end destabilize our societies.
As you say:
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I don’t think it’s possible to implement something like that with an anonymous blockchain…
I also believe that this kind of system would increase consumption where I also believe over consumption is, while not a root cause of hour ecological problems, a cause that’s deep down in the “inverse” hierarchy… Stuff that you buy looses value, one point of money is to keep value…
Although, as I ponder this more, This kind of currency would in a sense be like bartering. When bartering you trade stuff or service’s for stuff or service’s, that’s trading something that looses value for something else that looses value, Just like trading with a currency that looses value. I’m not totally against this but would definitely proceed with caution…
But then again, valueloss is just a property of a given object or service. You could just trade your stuff for say, umm… Gold… That’s something scarce and immutable for all practical purposes, see?
So, no I generally don’t think a currency that looses it’s value is a good idea…
I’m also very interested in the ecological issue or consequence of our economical choices. For me the ecological destruction has to do with valuing stuff that did not have value before, like underwater oil, air, bio food, spare time etc…
This has to do with usury and the way our dominant economical system force us to repaid debt with interest that does not exists. We have to value new stuff to pay that interest in the end. This is well explained in the master piece “the money master”.
As for rusting money, it’s just a kind of inflationary money as we have today but a lot more transparent on the way it’s going to loose value.