Author: Andrew 2015-05-09 12:02:48
Published on: 2015-05-09T12:02:48+00:00
The current 1 MB limit for Bitcoin transactions allows for all transactions relevant to a person's lifetime (~100 years) to be stored on one 5 TB hard drive, making it accessible to regular people. However, increasing block sizes to 10 MB would require a 50 TB hard drive, which is not feasible for most people due to space and monetary constraints. The ability to review all transactions relevant to a person's lifetime is crucial for auditing financial transactions of companies and governments using the Bitcoin blockchain, achieving transparency, and keeping corrupt entities in check. Assuming we have a perfectly functional off-chain transaction system, there is no clear and substantial gain by going beyond 1 MB. In fact, promoting a system where every person can handle the history of Bitcoin on a low-end PC is already falling out of reach, even with the current 7 tps limit. Therefore, we need to accept that a global transaction system cannot be fully/constantly audited by everyone and their mother, and instead rely on sidechains, treechains, lightning channels, etc. for scalability. Increasing the block size to accommodate all the world's coffees is unrealistic, as it would require 700 tps, or 100 MB blocks, which is highly centralized and sacrifices decentralized principles.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T19:34:55.418556+00:00