Things have been busy in crypto land this week and the big debate over Bitcoin’s block size has only just been usurped by JP Morgan’s attempt to launch its own completely centralized crypto coin. The block size issue is an important one so we’ll delve a little deeper into that.
Another Crypto Conflict Imminent?
Bitcoin Core, the enigmatic code that runs the world’s largest decentralized currency, has a highly calibrated and specific set of instructions and protocols. Any attempt to deviate from them is usually met with brimstone and fire from the developers and community. When they disagree a hard fork usually occurs and there have been a lot of them over Bitcoin’s short ten year lifespan.
The highly controversial proposal discussed this week came from Core developer Luke Dashj who suggested decreasing the size of the blocks from their current 1Mb to 300Kb. In theory this may increase adoption by reducing costs associated with network participation.
Another example: This patch would enforce a very simple softfork, reducing #Bitcoin block sizes to ~300k between Aug 1 and Dec 31. It demonstrates how one can make a truly TEMPORARY softfork.https://t.co/sukdk2zJpR
(DO NOT RUN THIS IN PRODUCTION EVEN IF YOU SUPPORT A UASF)
— Luke Dashjr moved2 @[email protected] (@LukeDashjr) February 7, 2019
Since the Bitcoin network has grown so large now (over 200Gb) running a full node, which stores and updates a copy of the entire blockchain, is extremely resource intensive and costly.
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