Author: ashish khandekar 2017-03-12 09:51:12
Published on: 2017-03-12T09:51:12+00:00
The current maximum size of a block in the bitcoin protocol is 1mb, leading to a "fee market" where high transaction fees are necessary for easy use of bitcoin. This creates difficulties for merchants and new users who are unaware of the developments in the bitcoin community. The limit of 1mb creates only a finite number of transactions to get confirmed, creating a backlog of transactions that can lead to blockchain congestion. A unique solution is to let the bitcoin network change the maximum block size as per the prevailing network conditions, which would be achieved by tracking the volume of the total size of transactions done between two consecutive network difficulty changes and dividing it by 2016. The resulting answer would be rounded up to the nearest kb and then compared to the previous block size, with the higher between the two being taken as the new maximum block size. This would allow the network to adjust the block size automatically and defend itself against stress tests or spam attacks in the future. To avoid orphaning of blocks and very small blocks, a minimum block size should also be taken into effect, which should be in the range of 30-60% of the maximum block size. By implementing these preemptive measures, the bitcoin blockchain can become uncongested and provide enough space for transactions to get included in blocks easily.
Updated on: 2023-05-20T01:03:43.597889+00:00