Author: Eric Lombrozo 2015-06-15 04:43:09
Published on: 2015-06-15T04:43:09+00:00
The main issue with block validation is not necessarily the linear scaling or O(n^2) bandwidth cost, but the validation cost itself. The n in O(n) represents the size of the entire blockchain that must be synchronized by every new validator, making it impossible to construct short proofs without requiring the validator to maintain the complete system state. There is currently no mechanism for directly compensating validators, which means that if we were to shift responsibility of constructing proofs over to transaction senders, today's validators would become nothing more than compensated servers. However, clients would be able to query for proofs and verify them efficiently. Satoshi's SPV is not a real solution due to its lack of a good validation security model, privacy issues, and scalability problems. With 20MB blocks, it would take up to 1TB of IO per year-synced for a bloom-filter-using wallet to sync the blockchain. Therefore, better data structures and algorithms are needed, rather than simply increasing block size.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T23:08:09.927424+00:00