New size of the value field

[sugarpuff]

biolizard89: at phelix's request, I've forked our convo to this thread, feel free to join me there: https://dot-bit.bit/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1333

[virtual_master]

Is the current limit a real problem? If not, why are we attempting to fix something that is not broken?
How about we wait until we have a really good reason for increasing the field size before doing it?

Yes. It is. Because there is no place for 4k GPG keys. And this is a good reason to increase the size.

Here are some potential (and real) problems with increasing it now:

• It takes a long time to bring up new clients because they have a lot of catching up to do.
• It takes a long time to bring up DNS servers because they have a lot of catching up to do.

They have nothing to do more than now if they don't need GPG keys.

[*] Storage space is cheap, and getting cheaper, but bandwidth capacity and price is not following the same curve (I don't think).

May be not the same curve but bandwidth capacity is still increasing very quickly over the time.
At the end of the nineties it was still the 64 kbaud the highest speed now since longer time 100 Mbaud it is standard.
In one generation we will have not gigabauds but terabauds.

[*] We might no longer be keeping up pace with Moore's law (see wikipedia: "However, the 2010 update to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors has growth slowing at the end of 2013"). We'll likely encounter this with storage space too (there is, after all, a physical limit).[/list]
So, before we create new problems for ourselves (unnecessarily, I might add), how about we address the issues above and elsewhere first, and then if we actually need, talk about increasing the size of the blockchain.

This was not due to physical limit problem just a consequence of the tsunami and other natural-catastrophes in Taiwan and in Japan.
But even if we reach a limit in the size of transistors and the physical limit with this technologies they are already other technologies waiting like bio-chips, quantum computing.
And if the quantum computing will reach its limits then will come something new (like super-string computing ).
So don't worry about the storage limits in the future.

[biolizard89]

As I think was stated previously; the fees for a large name will be higher than for the equivalent amount of storage in small names. So it cannot be used to spam the blockchain. It only makes it easier for applications to handle certain use cases.