Bitcoin Classic , a fork of Bitcoin with a doubled two-megabyte block size limit, appears to have failed. Now, many in the Bitcoin community have voiced fears that, with a continued one-megabyte limit, transaction confirmation times and fees will increase to the point where Bitcoin itself is untenable, potentially dooming the cryptocurrency.
However, Steven Zeiler, Software Architect at Zen Software and former software architect for Ripple, holds a different view. He feels that the block size limit is at present a non-issue, and that the Bitcoin economy continues to work relatively seamlessly, with no major threats on the horizon from the one-megabyte limit.
CoinTelegraph spoke to Zeiler about why the state of Bitcoin is strong despite block size limit challenges. Block size limit issue
CoinTelegraph: Do you view a 1MB block size limit to be an issue?
Steven Zeiler: I spend Bitcoin nearly every day for regular purchases, using a variety of wallets, services and exchanges, and in my experience the payment network is functioning exceptionally well. Yes, a cap on the block size will eventually raise the fees per, but I’m confident transaction verification won’t be too poorly affected, since most merchants don’t ever wait for a confirmation anyway.
The merchants I’m setting up all use BitPay, which seems to have algorithms for confirming transaction validity instantly with a high degree of certainty. The agorists and smaller businesses I deal with who use regular wallets also aren’t usually aware of the "block confirmation" timescale and simply count the bill as paid when they see the transaction has been broadcast.
I did have one issue last year because my wallet didn’t have adjustable fees and a payment to a Coinbase merchant online was stalled, and I had to deal with customer service, but since then most wallets I use have corrected the […]
