{"id":1380,"date":"2018-08-26T18:34:55","date_gmt":"2018-08-26T18:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitcoinsv.io\/?p=1380"},"modified":"2020-09-28T10:38:08","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T10:38:08","slug":"bitcoin-sv-and-big-blocks-a-safe-path-to-scaling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinsv.io\/2018\/08\/26\/bitcoin-sv-and-big-blocks-a-safe-path-to-scaling\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin SV and Big Blocks \u2013 A Safe Path to Scaling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TLDR; We\u2019re not forcing anyone to 128mb blocks, we\u2019re simply encouraging miners to configure block size limits themselves and giving them test results so they make informed choices.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The announcement of the Bitcoin SV project has caused quite a stir and the spectre of 128mb blocks seems to have invoked quite a lot of fear and uncertainty in the community. This post will address some of those fears and attempts to clarify some points that have been frequently misstated in recent discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a number of other issues to address in subsequent posts but this post will focus on block size as that appears to be the one that has the most attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soft caps vs Hard caps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In most bitcoin implementations, there are two key settings that govern block size on the network:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Soft cap<\/strong>: The maximum size block that a miner will MINE.<\/li>
  2. Hard cap<\/strong>: The maximum size block that miner will ACCEPT from another miner.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Currently, most implementations default to a soft cap of 2mb and a hard cap of 32mb. Some miners have adjusted their soft cap higher than this with the largest block ever mined so far being 8mb on the mainnet and 32mb on testnet. The Gigablock testnet has gone an order of magnitude higher but that wasn\u2019t with production code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Arguably, the soft cap is what the miner should set according to what is most economical for it to mine. That is the balance point between revenue, computational cost of building blocks and validation time (a function of the miner\u2019s hardware and software capacity). The hard cap is more of a fail-safe for two reasons: 1) It allows miners to accept blocks from other miners who might be economically able to miner larger blocks. These blocks may be more costly to validate but the miner is required to do so if they want to stay on the majority chain. 2) If no limit at all is in place (as software is currently architected), then the effective limit becomes the point where the node runs out of memory and crashes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For the sake of maintaining consensus, these two values are necessarily quite a long way apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Capacity planning for fast confirmations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    In order to ensure blocks never get full and result in the the delays and fee trauma that is typical for BTC users, it is necessary to set block caps well in excess of the network average. Let\u2019s look at recent data:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    View post on imgur.com<\/a><\/blockquote>