BitFury: BIP 100 to be the most prudent choice to grow the block size limit

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Wednesday, September 2, 2015 4:48 AM UTC

The block size limit debate has taken the bitcoin community by storm. Various alternative solutions have been put forth by various developers. BitFury has released a report, titled "Block Size Increase" that digs deep into the debate and gives a detailed analysis of the proposals.

It pointed out the pros and cons of the increased block size. Arguments in favour include more transactions per second, faster confirmation time, low transaction fees and more transactions for systems built on top of Bitcoin blockchain.

On the other hand, raising the block size limit could lead to centralization of the network, unstable block generation, and decrease in the number of full nodes in the Bitcoin network as processing larger blocks will require more powerful hardware.

Moreover, it said, "Increasing the block size would require a hard fork of the system, meaning newly solved blocks won't be recognized by non-upgraded software. This could lead to negative consequences for Bitcoin pricing and reputation."

It further discussed the proposals given so far, including Gavin Andresen's first proposal, BIP 100, BIP 101, BitcoinXT fork, BIP 102, Wuille's proposal and many others within the community that are aimed to make Bitcoin more scalable in the long term (IBLT, Treechains, GHOST, centralized off-chain ledges etc.)

The report acknowledged that for the bitcoin space to continue developing, the maximum block size needs to be raised. The current limit of 1MB limits scalability of Bitcoin and could prevent its widespread adoption.

It considers BIP 100 as the most sensible choice. It said:

"The optimal way to solve the block size debate is by a consensus decision; the voting mechanism introduced in BIP 100 is a good way to implement such a consensus. Forecasts for the growth of the Bitcoin network made by other proposals don't have enough predictive power, and in this case, the cost of a mistake is high. As BIP 100 lets members of Bitcoin community decide the block size limit, it is the best solution in this regard."