{"id":27318,"date":"2015-05-21T22:27:58","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T22:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe6c80082697"},"modified":"2015-05-21T22:27:58","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T22:27:58","slug":"bitcoin-core-developers-disagree-proposed-block-size-increase-20mb-1432247278","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/technical\/bitcoin-core-developers-disagree-proposed-block-size-increase-20mb-1432247278","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin Core Developers Disagree on Proposed Block Size Increase to 20MB"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With the current one-megabyte-per-block limit, the Bitcoin network can process only a few transactions per second, which could strongly limit the ability of the network to handle high transaction volumes if the adoption of bitcoin payments grows.<\/p>\n

Lead Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen is persuaded that the best solution to the problem is to increase the maximum block size, and has developed code<\/a> for a proposed Bitcoin hard fork that would allow any block with a timestamp on or after March 1, 2016 to be up to 20 megabytes. \u201cI believe this is the simplest possible set of changes that will work,\u201d Andresen says.<\/p>\n

In a post titled \u201cWhy increasing the max block size is urgent<\/a>,\u201d he argues that if the proposed solution is not urgently implemented the Bitcoin network will become oversaturated, and people might just stop using bitcoin because transaction confirmation would become increasingly unreliable. \u201cLimit the number of transactions that can happen on the Bitcoin blockchain, and instead of paying higher fees people will perform their transactions somewhere else,\u201d Andresen says in another post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The MIT Technology Review<\/em> just weighed in on the debate with a review, titled \u201cLeaderless Bitcoin Struggles to Make Its Most Crucial Decision<\/a>,\u201d of the pros and cons of the proposed hard fork. Author Mike Orcutt notes that not everyone in the community of users of the Bitcoin software \u2013 which includes miners, developers, and a growing number of startups \u2013 agrees that Andresen\u2019s proposal is the best path forward.<\/p>\n

For example, some critics argue that Andresen\u2019s solution could lead to a dangerous \u201ccentralization\u201d within the mining community, which would favor bigger, richer mining operations. A counter-argument is that it\u2019s already too late: Bitcoin mining<\/a> is already centralized and dominated by large, professional mining operations, and totally out of reach of individual miners and grassroots pools. This debate reflects the tension between two increasingly conflicting aspects of Bitcoin \u2013 the DIY, grassroots spirit of the early adopters, and the mainstream need for much more streamlined and efficient operations.<\/p>\n

Other critics, including Bitcoin core developer Pieter Wuille, argue that right now there are just too many unknowns about the consequences of increasing the block size to 20 megabytes. Wuille hints at \u201cthings we don\u2019t even know of that could break,\u201d and says that a smaller increase at first would be less risky.<\/p>\n

As for all important choices in technology development, there is no clear-cut ideal solution that fits all needs. On the contrary, different requirements must be prioritized and an optimal trade-off must be found. An interesting issue is who gets to make the decision. Princeton computer science professor Arvind Narayanan observes that the core developers are the only ones with the power to change the code, and therefore they will probably make the decision themselves if they can reach consensus \u2013 which is not the case at the moment, since at least one of them is against the proposed hard fork.<\/p>\n

The global issue is governance and leadership in Bitcoin technical development, which has been mostly \u201cleaderless\u201d as the title of the MIT Technology Review<\/em>article emphasizes, with the Bitcoin Foundation unable to provide effective governance. Recently, Andresen and other Bitcoin Core developers joined the MIT Digital Currency Initiative<\/a>, which is now beginning to assume leadership in the Bitcoin development space.<\/p>\n

Brian Forde, director of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative, is offering to co-host an open forum for discussions aimed arriving at a rough consensus, The Wall Street Journal<\/em>reports<\/a>. \u201cHow this decision is made will be a good example of how the open and active community of developers, entrepreneurs, miners, researchers and users will continue to collaborate on major changes to Bitcoin core,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Photo background by Freepik<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the current one-megabyte-per-block limit, the Bitcoin network can process only a few transactions per second, which could strongly limit the ability of the network to handle high transaction volumes if the adoption of bitcoin payments grows. Lead Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen is persuaded that the best solution to the problem is to increase the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3509,"featured_media":27317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[1662,1657,245,3587,86,3259,1923,708],"class_list":{"0":"post-27318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technical","8":"tag-block-size","9":"tag-centralization","10":"tag-developers","11":"tag-gavin-andersen","12":"tag-miners","13":"tag-mit","14":"tag-peter-wuille","15":"tag-transactions"},"author_data":{"id":3509,"name":"Giulio Prisco","nicename":"giulio-prisco","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2d091b908741b627d89036dd43748bb5c5edcfe9f805501703e2c3af34dadfca?s=96&d=robohash&r=g"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/bitcoin-core-developers-disagree-on-proposed-block-size-increase-to-20mb.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3509"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}