Author: Raystonn . 2015-06-08 22:46:59
Published on: 2015-06-08T22:46:59+00:00
The issue of the blocksize limit in Bitcoin is creating problems as it can be used by spammers to deny transaction confirmation, and they could maintain this attack forever by filling up blocks with high fees. This attack would get cheaper once the BTCUSD market tanks due to the lack of usability of the Bitcoin network, making it a self-reinforcing attack that could destroy Bitcoin for as long as an attacker wants to keep it up, or until it's patched after the fact. The blocksize limit determines the minimum bandwidth required to stay in consensus and without it, a spammer would flood the network with transactions until they run out of money. However, if the bandwidth consumed by those transactions was sufficiently high, the network would collapse because of the blocksize limit. An attacker flooding the network with transactions can keep their fees high enough that only 1% of transactions coming from real end-users would go through, causing everyone to give up on Bitcoin as it would become completely unusable. Meanwhile, everyone would jump on board trying to mine the blocks to collect the fees from the spammers, which could be one of the greatest transfers of wealth ever. A much more realistic transaction flood scenario would raise tx fees to something more like $0.25/tx.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T22:40:03.660779+00:00