Bitcoin Core Developers and Representatives Reach Consensus on the Block Size Debate

During the Scaling Bitcoin workshop held in Montreal a few weeks back, some suggestions to increase the block size limit from the current 1MB to 2-4MB were raised. Participants seemed to focus on Adam Back's 2-4-8 block size increase proposal, although notable developers appeared to support a smaller short-term bump in limits. Some discussions on the bitcoin-dev mailing list apparently revealed that some core developers are interested in a short-term fix. Scaling Bitcoin and Block Size Debate. Prior to this workshop, bitcoin developers and members of the community have been debating on....

The block size debate has been going on for quite some time now, prompting developers Andresen and Hearn to create a new version of the bitcoin software and force the network to a hard fork. The hope is that the system can make the decision itself based on consensus, which is typically how the network functions anyway. However, developers suggest another option, which is to scale bitcoin. Sidechains have also been discussed as a potential workaround to the issue of increasing the block size from 1MB to 8MB, possibly allowing the network to handle more transactions and verify those in a....

Since 2015, bitcoin experts, startups and key players in the industry have participated in the block size debate. While leading bitcoin startups including Coinbase, Bitpay, Itbit, Circle, KnCMiner, Blockchain.info and Xapo have publicly announced their support for bitcoin core developer and Bitcoin Foundation chief scientist Gavin Andressen’s 8 megabyte Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 101 or Bitcoin XT, some support the proposal of Jeff Garzik to increase the blocksize steadily, by two megabytes. Due to the disputes between these two sides, miners, bitcoin organizations, startups, core....

This week, bitcoin Jesus Roger Ver weighed in on the block size debate stating that the block size limit should be increased if it is technologically achievable. Specifically, Ver tweeted: The block size debate has been underway for some time now and a lot of developers including Bitcoin Core Developers and the Bitcoin community are getting exasperated with the current impasse. In addition, many developers are now spending a lot of time and money seeking alternative solutions. If every 1MB block were always full, it would take over 55 years to fill my new HD. Let's raise the block size....

Many people are keeping a close eye on the block size debate for very different reasons. Solving the Bitcoin block size problem has been a top priority for developers over the past few months. Multiple solutions have been proposed, although only two of them are in actual “contention” right now. Bitcoin Core developers have begun development of a third solution that would shift the block size to 2MB. It is always good to have options on the table. Even though Segregated Witness has not been denied by the mining community yet, it is due time to consider alternatives. Bitcoin Core developers....