Author: Andrew 2015-05-09 18:33:32
Published on: 2015-05-09T18:33:32+00:00
In an email thread between Justus Ranvier and Andrew on May 9, 2015, the discussion of block size limit and its impact on Bitcoin storage was addressed. Andrew argued that a 1 MB block size limit is sufficient for storing all relevant Bitcoin transactions of a person's lifetime (~100 years) on a 5 TB hard drive. However, with a 10 MB block size limit, a 50 TB drive would be needed; this would not be feasible for most regular people due to space and monetary constraints. The ability to review all transactions relevant to one's lifetime is essential to auditing the financial transactions of companies and governments that use the Bitcoin blockchain, as well as keeping corrupt entities in check and tracking personal transactions.Justus asked how many individuals and companies would potentially use Bitcoin, to which Andrew estimated at least 10 billion people would use it directly or indirectly for at least 100 years. Rather than guessing the number of users, however, Andrew suggested making the system ready for 10 billion people. For small transactions, they would be done off-chain, and the actual Bitcoin blockchain would only show very large transactions or aggregate transactions. Andrew proposed multiple layers of chains creating a tree-like structure where each chain above validates the aggregate transactions of the chain below. This kind of system is transparent to all users and flexible, allowing arbitrarily fast transactions and a wide variety of features from other chains.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T19:42:56.559772+00:00