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posted by FatPhil on Wednesday August 02 2017, @11:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the pieces-of-two,-pieces-of-two dept.

On Tuesday, a faction of the Bitcoin community launched an audacious experiment: a new version of Bitcoin called Bitcoin Cash that's incompatible with the standard version. As a result, the Bitcoin network split into two mutually incompatible networks that will operate side-by-side.

[...] For over a year, the Bitcoin network has been bumping up against a capacity limit hard-coded into the Bitcoin software. Each block in the Bitcoin blockchain—the network's public, shared transaction ledger—is limited to 1 megabyte. That artificial limit prevents the network from processing more than about seven transactions per second.

Technically speaking, it would be trivial to change that 1 megabyte limit to a higher value. But proposals to do so have faced opposition from traditionalists who argue the limit is actually an important feature of Bitcoin's design that protects the network's democratic character. To participate in the network's peer-to-peer process for clearing transactions, a computer needs a copy of every transaction ever made on the Bitcoin network, which adds up to gigabytes of data per month.

Small-block supporters worry that raising the block limit will raise the storage and bandwidth costs of participating in the network, pricing out ordinary users. That could lead to a Bitcoin network dominated by a few big players, making the network more susceptible to government control and regulation—exactly what Bitcoin was created to avoid.

Big-block supporters say storage and bandwidth costs have fallen so quickly that this isn't a serious concern. And they say Bitcoin is going to need to process a lot more than seven transactions per second to become a mainstream technology with a real shot at changing the world.

This argument has dragged on for more than two years with no resolution. So instead of continuing to bicker, a group of big-block supporters took matters into their own hands. They forked the standard, open-source Bitcoin client to create a rival version of the software.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/why-the-bitcoin-network-just-split-in-half-and-why-it-matters/

Also covered at: https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/01/bitcoin-feud-splits-the-cryptocurrency-in-two/

Considering our crypto-currency story from yesterday, Internet's Largest Bitcoin Mixer Shuts Down Realizing Bitcoin is Not Anonymous, do Soylentils think that perhaps Bitcoin might be starting to fray at the seams?


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @03:24AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @03:24AM (#548213)

    The blockchain growth seems like a devastating bad time for crypto currencies. The more mainstream the payments get, the worse the scaling problems.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @09:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @09:42AM (#548279)

    The more mainstream the payments get, the worse the scaling problems.

    They should have used MongoDB. It's web scale.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @05:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @05:58PM (#548444)

    bitshares handles volume just fine and so will EOS. Bitcoin has been the slowest to adopt needed features because it lacks governance. this is why alt currencies have grown. unfortunately, due to central exchanges and banks, BTC remains the on and off ramp, thus tying alt coins to BTC which means none have truly broken free from BTC's limitations, price and adoption wise. people are working on these limitations and once you can buy any coin from anywhere, without some mole intermediary, things will explode. assuming projects can push the info to the end users, who are too lazy to find anything out themselves.