The Block Size Debate – Didn’t We Have Enough of It Already?

By July 14, 2016Bitcoin Business

The Bitcoin block size debate rages on. It has been almost a year since we started hearing the Bitcoin community fiercely contesting about whether to increase the bitcoin block size from the existing 1 MB or not. Both the sides have so far come up with some valid arguments, of which few are very convincing towards both the causes.

Recently the “Jesus of Bitcoin”, Roger Ver wrote an article about why the Bitcoin block size needs to be increased. In the article, he compares the Bitcoin blocks to Starbucks (NASDAQ : SBUX) coffee outlets as an analogy to drive the point home. Those against an increase in the Bitcoin block size believe that all the blocks on the bitcoin network should have their block spaces completely filled with transaction data. However, Roger Ver explains that if all the Starbucks joints have a pre-fixed limited supply of coffee – and always running out of it when the demand increases – then there is no way they can expect growth, which in Bitcoin’s context translates to the capacity of the blockchain to process transactions.

Increase in the block size may result in an increased processing power and storage requirements, all of which can be supported easily (taking Moore’s law and progressively cheaper storage into consideration). But at the same time, it also makes it convenient for bitcoin users to execute transactions economically.

You can read Roger Ver’s original post here

There are always two sides to a debate and it is no different here. Another article on the same platform contests Roger Ver’s opinion. Some of the points raised in the article and possible responses are as follows

Satoshi Nakamoto limited the block size at 1 MB to prevent DDoS attacks on the network. Should we attempt to change it?

While the elusive […]

Leave a Reply

All Today's Crypto News In One Place