During the last couple of months, the bitcoin community has been stirring on which ideas should be chosen when it comes down to increasing the blocksize limit. While some believe that the limit should stay as it is, others believe that a gradual increase would be beneficial for the coin, whereas another group of people believe that increasing the block size by a lot, and as soon as possible is essential for the survival of the cryptocurrency.
So far, there have been several highly-publicized meetings between lead developers, companies and prominent members of the community, meant to reach consensus in this matter. Strangely enough, consensus was technically reached during this weekend, over at the Scaling Bitcoin Conference, held in Hong Kong.
Before anything else, it’s important to point out the fact that the event’s attendees represent roughly 80% of the total bitcoin network’s hash power. With this in mind, some of them included managers of bitcoin mining companies, exchanges, bitcoin associations and more. As the number of daily bitcoin transactions is actively increasing, so is the need of a blocksize increase. The main reason why, is the fact that as bitcoin adoption commences, transactions will take longer and longer to be processed.
During the meeting, the primary goal was to have the SegWit script presented, alongside with the ideas for the blocksize increase, meant to ensure that bitcoin will survive in the future, and that it won’t need to be replaced by an altcoin.
Based on this, the consensus reached includes the actual adoption of the SegWit protocol, which can be described as a soft fork, which will provide a remedy for the problem in the short-term. However, a long-term solution also had to be found. With this in mind, the attendees agreed to drop Bitcoin Classic, and to choose SegWit over its counterpart. The main reason why is the fact that not only is SegWit easy to implement, but it doesn’t require the blocksize limit to be increased immediately. However, chances are that the limit will in fact grow from 1 MB to 2 MBs once the hard-fork happens in July 2017.
At this moment in time, most of the companies present do tend to believe that improving the blockchain’s ability to record transactions will be beneficial for bitcoin in the short-term, while also granting it enough time to accommodate to the impending changes. However, not all agree. In fact, CoinBase has recently released a report stating that a move to Bitcoin Classic, which would increase the limit to 2 MB instantly, would be a lot more beneficial.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, while technically, consensus has been reached, we’ll have to wait a bit more to see how things will develop in the near future. What do you personally think about the blocksize debate? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.