Monero is striving to be a currency that everyone can use, the growth of the blockchain is starting to hamper this goal IMO.
I think we should consider dropping blocks off of the chain tail once we reach block height of 4000000. This will give us 10 years of storage capacity, more than enough IMO.
Similar to how you have to exchange bills of cash once they get worn, you would simply churn your coins to get your outputs into younger blocks.
We are trying to be digital cash not an inheritance vault. If we had this feature from the start 99% of the community would agree with it.
Please consider this.๐
*Edit: @4KB/tx * 100,000tx/day we are looking at ~400MB chain growth daily, this is not sustainable, let's take care of this now before it becomes a big problem
**Edit: A possible solution could be that nodes would have the option to set chain retention duration. So when syncing a new node you can select that you would like to retain 5 years of chain data, with a minimum boundary enforced that retains sufficient security. This way the network decides in a fair way how much chain data is useful to store.
I agree blockchain growth could become a problem someday. I think it's not right now and it probably won't be in the next few years (as @monerobull already pointed out).
I'd recommend watching this monero talk episode, because near the end Luke Parker (kayabaNerve) talks about what's next for monero after seraphis/jamtis. And to me it sounded like there is a solution for the blockchain growth problem in there (nova or what it's called?). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhNljgiQKp8
I think for now full chain membership proofs are one of the most important things for us (i.e. fixing the weakest link in the system aka ring signatures). After that we're mostly set on privacy and focus on other things like blockchain growth/accessability etc. (which seraphis/jamtis also tackles).
About the currency and store of value topic: In the literature it's often said money or a currency has three functions -> store of value, transfer of funds and unit of accounting. Thorsten Polleit argued in one of his latest books that these three functions actually can be condensed into a single one -> transfer of value. Store of value is just a transfer of funds through time. And unit of accounting is just that a business wants to pick the most liquid exchangeable good which circles back to transfering funds effectively and efficiently.
If you're now saying monero should be aiming for becoming the best currency, but not a store of value, you limit it's capability as a currency as transfering value (through time) is the fundamental function of a currency.
So we need to find a technical solution to that problem without compromising on the currency aspect.
So to wrap up, I appreciate your input as I agree, we need to always keep the shortcomings of monero in mind and work on improving them. I think the discussion around and permanent reevaluation of monero is one of the things that made it what it is today and if we can keep the spirit going it's what it'll make it successful in the future too :)
What a great comment.
I am not saying Monero should not be used to store coins long term and my suggestion only adds a small inconvenience by requiring a churn once in a long while.
I hope you are correct about the future developments which will finally bring a solution to the eternal chain growth problem and I am glad these types of conversations are still allowed in Monero. ๐