Technical Roadblock Ahead? New Research Paper Warns of Future Bitcoin Network Scaling Concerns

A recent MIT Technology Review article covered by Bitcoin Magazine, titled “Technical Roadblock Might Shatter Bitcoin Dreams,” asks whether the Bitcoin network could be scaled up to support thousands of transactions per second, like the world’s major payment networks, and concludes that the answer is no, unless the Bitcoin code is radically re-engineered. “Today’s representative blockchain such as Bitcoin takes 10 min or longer to confirm transactions, achieves 7 transactions/sec maximum throughput,” notes a recent research paper. “In comparison, a mainstream payment processor such as Visa....

This article summarizes a technical paper on scaling blockchains. I do not disaggregate the entire work, but I definitely get under the hood. So if you do not have the time, spoiler alert! “Here is the takeaway. Blockchains must be massively more scalable than the current tech that supports Bitcoin. We start scaling slowly or quickly. And if we choose the latter, it will “require fundamental protocol redesign.”” If you choose to read on, you will see the aforementioned again. Ready? As the classic joke goes, what do you get when you mix the Initiative for CyrpoCurrencies and Contracts....

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a warning that alerts financial institutions in the United States about increasing ransomware attacks against coronavirus vaccine research organizations. US Treasury Warns of Ransomware Attacks, Phishing Schemes Targeting Covid-19 Vaccine Research Institutions According to the alert, FinCEN says that fraud, ransomware attacks, and “similar types of criminal activity” target the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, which could affect their supply chains if proper actions are not taken on....

Ethereum rival Enjin is facing the prospect of posting a massive breakout rally ahead, according to a classic technical indicator and a crucial network update.

Will layer-two scaling solutions solve all the challenges that enterprises face with public blockchains? At the end of 2019, research firm Forrester and Big Four firm Ernst & Young, or EY, published a report surveying the adoption of public blockchains by enterprises. Findings revealed that 75% of respondents were likely to use a public blockchain in the future.Although this was the case, the report also found that most enterprises were still using private blockchains to ensure security, privacy and scalability. What was also noted in the survey as the top three concerns regarding public....