Everything You Need to Know about the Proposed Changes to the Bitcoin Block Size Cap

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....

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 maximum block size, and has developed code 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. "I believe this is the simplest possible set of changes that will....

Bitcoin Core Developer Jeff Garzik has introduced Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 202, proposing that the Bitcoin community and miners take small and economically sound steps in increasing the maximum Bitcoin block size to 2 megabytes. Over the past few months, bitcoin core developers have proposed a number of BIPs including BIP 100 and 101, to increase the Bitcoin block size up to 8 megabytes. However, Bitcoin experts have criticized such proposals with concerns that it may "break" the Bitcoin code. "Bitcoin's block size limit needs to be increased in order to achieve wide Bitcoin....

BitPay, the largest bitcoin payment processor has sided with Gavin Andresen's court by showing its support towards incorporation of BIP 101. In other words, BitPay in one of their blog posts mentioned that the company supports the move to increase bitcoin block size from 1 MB to 8 MB (which is known as BIP 101). Bitcoin XT has been a topic of serious debate among the bitcoin community for a while now. The debate has ranged ever since Gavin Andresen, the Chief Scientist at Bitcoin Foundation and Mike Hearn proposed Bitcoin XT a few months ago. The Bitcoin XT proposal was later changed to....

In May, Bitcoin Magazine reported that lead Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen is persuaded that the best solution to the limited Bitcoin transactions rate - the Bitcoin network can currently process only a few transactions per second -- is to increase the maximum block size. Andresen argued that if the proposed solution is not urgently implemented the Bitcoin network will become oversaturated, and developed code 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. However, not everyone agrees that Andresen's....