Bitcoin Foundation Chief Scientist Gavin Andresen

Bitcoin proponents are pushing for its wider adoption because they believe cryptocurrency has the potential to replace every other currency in the world. Thanks to this push, there are now hundreds of online and brick-and-mortar shops, restaurants, pubs, and vending machines that accept Bitcoin payments, and adoption is only set to increase.

According to BitInfoCharts.com, the Bitcoin network currently processes 50,000 – 80,000 transactions per day, and as more people and places start to accept and use it, daily transactions will increase. At the moment, the data needs by the Bitcoin network to process this amount of transactions are not that huge, making the 1-megabyte block size, which allows for approximately 7-transactions-per-second, sufficient for today’s use. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to suffice in 5-10 years time.

In a piece entitled A Scalability Roadmap, Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, proposes increasing the number of transactions allowed on the Bitcoin network – something he says can be accomplished by raising the maximum block size by 50 percent per year. Andresen believes that suchs scalability will be beneficial for the Bitcoin community in the long run.

“Agreeing on exactly how to accomplish that goal is where people start to disagree – there are lots of possible solutions. Here is my current favorite: roll out a hard fork that increases the maximum block size, and implements a rule to increase that size over time, very similar to the rule that decreases the block reward over time,” Andresen wrote.

Doing a hard fork on Bitcoin the block is not unheard of. Back in 2010, when Bitcoin started gaining momentum and began receiving attention from hackers for the first time, Satoshi Nakamoto rolled out several quick-fixes which included dropping the maximum block size from infinite to one megabyte. Before the fix, the maximum was 32-gigabytes. So yes, changing the block size is possible, but the problem is getting the community to agree upon the change.

Andresen noted that just because Nakamoto carried out similar changes in 2010, the argument: “Because Satoshi Said So”, isn’t a valid reason for once again changing the block, and reiterated that Bitcoin must stay true to its origins.

“I think the maximum block size must be increased for the same reason the limit of 21 million coins must NEVER be increased: because people were told that the system would scale up to handle lots of transactions, just as they were told that there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins,” Andresen added.

The problem of not scaling will result in transactions that could take hours or days to go through. If this happens, most users would probably abandon Bitcoin. Andresen believes people would rather pay higher transactions fees, in response to the increased block size, than wait for transactions to go through.

Will the Bitcoin community support Andresen’s hard fork proposal or will they come up with a better plan to scale the Bitcoin block? Watch this space!

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