曼哈顿巨阵本周重返夜空，恒星全食

曼哈顿巨阵本周重返夜空，观看恒星全食

Counting the number of transactions per block is actually non-trivial, as transactions themselves have different sizes. Large multisig transactions with multiple signatures and multiple public keys can be quite large, whereas Taproot transactions can be quite small with everything hidden under the hood. Transactions can have one input but multiple outputs; each extra output is essentially another payment to another party and the data size of an additional output is quite small.

计算每个块的交易数量实际上并不简单，因为交易本身具有不同的大小。具有多个签名和多个公钥的大型多重签名交易可能非常大，而 Taproot 交易可能非常小，所有内容都隐藏在幕后。交易可以有一个输入但有多个输出；每个额外的输出本质上都是对另一方的另一次支付，并且额外输出的数据量非常小。

With these multiple outputs, a single transaction can actually correspond to multiple payments, such as when a Bitcoin exchange makes a single transaction with multiple outputs to multiple customers. So, there's a wide range of how many transactions you can actually fit inside a block. And the right unit of analysis is not the number of unique users per year, but simply the number of transactions. But regardless, there is a finite number of transactions on Bitcoin per year, and that number is less than the current world population.

有了这些多个输出，单笔交易实际上可以对应于多笔支付，例如当比特币交易所向多个客户进行具有多个输出的单笔交易时。因此，一个区块中实际可以容纳的交易数量有很多种。正确的分析单位不是每年的独立用户数量，而只是交易数量。但无论如何，每年比特币的交易数量是有限的，而且这个数字少于当前的世界人口。

So, back to the original question: Is this a problem?

那么，回到最初的问题：这是一个问题吗？

This is not a problem today, since even with ordinals and inscriptions, blocks are not always full. As the blocks start to fill up, the market will clear with higher transaction fees. These higher fees will perform the same role that congestion pricing plays on highways.

今天这不是问题，因为即使有序数和铭文，区块也并不总是满的。随着区块开始填满，市场将以更高的交易费用出清。这些较高的费用将起到与高速公路拥堵费相同的作用。

High-value customers will be served, and low-value customers will not. This is efficient because the lower value customers simply do not have the willingness to pay the market price.

高价值客户将得到服务，低价值客户则不会。这是有效的，因为低价值客户根本不愿意支付市场价格。

This leads to the classic debate between the engineer and the economist. Both see traffic on a highway. The engineer wants to build another road, but the economist wants to charge prices. If the objective is to serve the most users, then the engineer's approach is correct.

这引发了工程师和经济学家之间的经典争论。两人都看到高速公路上的交通。工程师想要修建另一条路，但经济学家想要收取价格。如果目标是服务最多的用户，那么工程师的方法就是正确的。

But this will not eliminate traffic; it will simply end up in an inevitable race to build more and more capacity, as more people will be tempted to drive as the costs are low. If instead the highway adopted congestion pricing, low-value users would substitute away from driving and into other forms of transportation, like walking or biking.

但这并不会消除流量；最终将不可避免地展开一场建设越来越多容量的竞赛，因为成本低廉，更多的人会被诱惑开车。如果高速公路采用拥堵收费，低价值用户就会放弃驾驶，转而选择其他交通方式，例如步行或骑自行车。

Taking this to Bitcoin touches the debate on the block sizes. Larger blocks will allow for more transactions per block, no question. More transaction volume will mean more individuals and institutions using Bitcoin, no question.

比特币的这一点涉及到关于区块大小的争论。毫无疑问，更大的区块将允许每个区块进行更多的交易。毫无疑问，更多的交易量意味着更多的个人和机构使用比特币。

But larger blocks also have a negative externality, in that they make the network less decentralized as it increases the cost of running a full node, slows network throughput, and will ultimately hurt Bitcoin's decentralization. The block size wars fought these debates for years, and the small blockers won.

但较大的区块也具有负外部性，因为它们使网络的去中心化程度降低，因为它增加了运行完整节点的成本，减慢了网络吞吐量，并最终损害了比特币的去中心化。区块大小之争多年来一直在争论，最终小区块者获胜。

(Read the "Block Size Wars" by Jonathan Bier for the full story.)

（阅读乔纳森·比尔 (Jonathan Bier) 的《区块大小战争》了解完整故事。）

I see no problem with the economic solution, namely, higher transaction fees that will allow high-value customers to continue to transact on the chain. Given that consensus today is still for smaller blocks, this means that the major users of the blockchain in the future will likely be institutions.

我认为经济解决方案没有问题，即更高的交易费用将允许高价值客户继续在链上进行交易。鉴于目前的共识仍然是较小的区块，这意味着未来区块链的主要用户可能是机构。

I predict Bitcoin will become a settlement layer between banks, with consumer use of Bitcoin shifted off-chain, either through Lightning or other Layer 2 innovations. The higher those transaction fees become, the greater the consumer demand for Layer 2 tech, and therefore the greater the incentive for entrepreneurs to meet that demand.

我预测比特币将成为银行之间的结算层，消费者对比特币的使用将通过闪电网络或其他第 2 层创新转移到链下。交易费用越高，消费者对 Layer 2 技术的需求就越大，因此企业家满足这一需求的动力就越大。

Those technologies are still working out their kinks, but I am optimistic that they will eventually handle all the consumer demand for Bitcoin off-chain, with the final settlement occurring on chain.

这些技术仍在解决其问题，但我乐观地认为，它们最终将在链下处理所有消费者对比特币的需求，并在链上进行最终结算。

This is still a massive improvement from today, since global settlement by financial institutions on an immutable, distributed, decentralized layer is still a vast improvement over the hot mess of the banks exchanging fiat currencies with each other today, and collecting vast rents in the process.

与今天相比，这仍然是一个巨大的进步，因为金融机构在不可变的、分布式的、去中心化的层上进行全球结算，相对于今天银行相互交换法定货币并在此过程中收取巨额租金的混乱局面来说，仍然是一个巨大的进步。

Not every human on earth needs to transact directly on chain for Bitcoin to have massive impact.

并非地球上的每个人都需要直接在链上进行交易，比特币才能产生巨大的影响。