Bitcoin Core Dev Recommends a 70% Reduction in Transaction Capacity after $250 Million Backlog
Luke-jr, developer of the Bitcoin Core client and Blockstream contractor, has recommended in a developers’ mailing list Bitcoin Improvement Proposal announcement an instant 70% reduction of bitcoin’s transaction capacity to 300kb, followed by a yearly increase of around 17%, reaching the current transaction capacity of 1MB in 2024. Thereafter, it is intended to continue increasing by 17%, reaching a maximum capacity of 31MB in around half a century. The proposal to reduce transaction capacity that Luke-jr says he can “immediately recommend… for adoption,” is made no more than two days....
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An incredible sum of more than 900,000 bitcoins, worth almost a billion dollars, was stuck at one point last night, waiting to move, due to limited transaction capacity. At the time of writing, more than 300,000 bitcoins remain stuck. Luke-Jr, a developer of the Bitcoin Core client and a Blockstream contractor, publicly responded to the backlog by stating “[j]ust pay a $5 fee and it’ll go through every time.” Jameson Lopp, a BitGo engineer, publicly stated yesterday that if bitcoin’s price hits $10,000 without an increase in transaction capacity, fees will be $400 based on current data.....
Amid continued highs in trading and price, Bitcoin’s transaction backlog is giving out warning signs of a network already at capacity. Data from Blockchain.info uploaded to Twitter by Chain engineer Tony Arcieri showed constant spikes in the Bitcoin mempool, the vat of unprocessed transactions waiting for confirmation. “The Bitcoin mempool, a buffer of unprocessed transactions, has been flaring up a lot now that the system is at capacity, only 4tps average,” Arcieri commented. Notably, the size of such transactions peaked around Feb. 23 at just under 75 mln bytes, before coming down....
The only viable way to bypass this backlog is for users to spend a higher transaction fee. However, that is not the "pushy" direction in which Bitcoin should evolve by any means. The past 24 hours have been somewhat turbulent for the Bitcoin ecosystem. With the number of unconfirmed transactions surpassing the 43,500 mark just over a day ago, things weren’t looking great. But it looks like the mempool is showing signs of a desperately needed decline in unconfirmed transfers. Another stark warning that the scalability of Bitcoin needs to be addressed today rather than tomorrow. It....
For the first time ever, bitcoin has been running above capacity for more than a week as transaction backlogs are now becoming a common experience with no indication of any solution in the near future. Bitcoin is Currently Operating Under a Constant Backlog For the First Time. On the 4th of February 2017, almost $1billion worth of bitcoin was stuck. It gradually went down, but never cleared, with around 300,000 bitcoins waiting to move. Yesterday, that went up again to almost 900,000. The mempool is usually full and the network now runs at around 3-4 txs per second when it can only handle....
The first release for an alternative implementation of bitcoin that would double its transaction capacity has been published. Today, bitcoin users run or rely on versions of Bitcoin Core, the descendent of the original bitcoin software developed by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Yet the ongoing debate on how to increase capacity has opened the door to other implementations of bitcoin to gain prominence, as previously demonstrated by the rise and subsequent fall of Bitcoin XT. The release of Bitcoin Classic, which constitutes a repackaging of the latest Bitcoin Core software....