Bitcoin Unlimited takes off as Core blocks mined drop below 90% for the first time, indicating that Bitcoin may be forked, increasing the block size limit. Attempts to raise the block size limit have been made in the past, the latest of which before Unlimited, Bitcoin Classic, reached 70 blocks per 1,000 at its height before slowly declining. This month, Bitcoin Unlimited, which would allow the block size to be increased, took off , fast approaching 10% of Bitcoin blocks mined per thousand. Added to Classic’s roughly 30 (and declining) blocks and Core’s block share has dipped below 880. That degree of momentum could signal that a hard fork is on the way soon. Jose Rodriguez, vice president for payments of Bitso, sees an eventual increase in Bitcoin’s block size as necessary to the network’s expansion if it ever seeks mainstream adoption on a wide scale: “Ideally the block size should increase to scale and be able to surpass American Express, Mastercard and Visa in number of financial transactions processed. Visa is currently the leader with 71 bln transactions in 2015 according to it’s 2015 annual report. Thats over 1.3 mln transactions every 10 minutes to place it in perspective versus Bitcoin.” Delayed action on the block size highlights Bitcoin’s governance challenges The current one-megabyte block size limit has been the subject of much controversy in the Bitcoin community. Proponents of a block size increase claimed that small blocks drastically reduces Bitcoin’s speed and increases its cost, making it untenable for wide adoption, while opponents claim that the currency is strong, and attempting fundamental changes to Bitcoin would be pose an unnecessary risk. According to Eric Sammons, consultant for competing cryptocurrency Dash (which had its own very brief block size debate before the limit was raised), sees Bitcoin’s issue […]
