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*[[Bitcoin Classic]] was proposed in 2016 to increase the transaction processing capacity of bitcoin by increasing the block size limit.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Rizzo|first1=Pete|title=Making Sense of Bitcoin's Divisive Block Size Debate|url=http://www.coindesk.com/making-sense-block-size-debate-bitcoin/|accessdate=22 June 2017|work=CoinDesk|date=19 January 2016}}</ref>
*[[Bitcoin Classic]] was proposed in 2016 to increase the transaction processing capacity of bitcoin by increasing the block size limit.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Rizzo|first1=Pete|title=Making Sense of Bitcoin's Divisive Block Size Debate|url=http://www.coindesk.com/making-sense-block-size-debate-bitcoin/|accessdate=22 June 2017|work=CoinDesk|date=19 January 2016}}</ref>


* "The Hong Kong Agreement" was a 2016 agreement of some miners and developers, colloquially termed "The Hong Kong Agreement," that contained a timetable that would see both the activation of the Segregated Witness (SegWit) proposal established in December 2015 by Bitcoin Core developers, and the development of a block size limit increased to 2 MB. However, both timelines were missed.<ref name="coindesk20170524">{{Cite news |url=http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-new-scaling-agreement-reaction/ |title=Bitcoin's New Scaling 'Agreement': The Reaction |author=Pete Rizzo & Alyssa Hertig |accessdate=29 June 2017 |date=24 May 2017 |work=CoinDesk|publisher=}}</ref>
* "The Hong Kong Agreement" was a 2016 agreement of some miners and developers that contained a timetable that would see both the activation of the Segregated Witness (SegWit) proposal established in December 2015 by Bitcoin Core developers, and the development of a block size limit increased to 2 MB. However, both timelines were missed.<ref name="coindesk20170524">{{Cite news |url=http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-new-scaling-agreement-reaction/ |title=Bitcoin's New Scaling 'Agreement': The Reaction |author=Pete Rizzo & Alyssa Hertig |accessdate=29 June 2017 |date=24 May 2017 |work=CoinDesk|publisher=}}</ref>


* [[SegWit2x]] was a proposed hard fork of the cryptocurrency bitcoin. The implementation of Segregated Witness in August 2017 was only the first half of the so-called "New York Agreement" by which those who wanted to increase effective block size by SegWit compromised with those who wanted to increase block size by a hard fork to a larger block size.<ref>{{cite web | last = Haywood | first = Matthew | title=Segwit2x, 'The New York Agreement' | publisher = bravenewcoin.com |date= 16 August 2017 | url =https://bravenewcoin.com/news/segwit2x-the-new-york-agreement/ | accessdate = 6 October 2017 }}</ref> The second half of SegWit2x involved a hard fork in November 2017 to increase the blocksize to 2 megabytes.<ref>{{cite web | last = Hertig | first = Alyssa | title=Explainer: What Is SegWit2x and What Does It Mean for Bitcoin?| publisher = [[CoinDesk]] |date= 12 July 2017 | url =https://www.coindesk.com/explainer-what-is-segwit2x-and-what-does-it-mean-for-bitcoin/ | accessdate = 6 October 2017 }}</ref> On November 8, 2017 the developers of SegWit2x announced that the hard fork planned for around November 16, 2017 was canceled for the time being due to a lack of consensus.<ref>{{cite web | last = Hertig | first = Alyssa | title=2x Called Off: Bitcoin Hard Fork Suspended for Lack of Consensus | publisher = [[CoinDesk]] |date= 8 November 2017 | url =https://www.coindesk.com/2x-called-off-bitcoin-hard-fork-suspended-lack-consensus/ | accessdate = 8 November 2017 }}</ref>
* [[SegWit2x]] was a proposed hard fork of the cryptocurrency bitcoin. The implementation of Segregated Witness in August 2017 was only the first half of the so-called "New York Agreement" by which those who wanted to increase effective block size by SegWit compromised with those who wanted to increase block size by a hard fork to a larger block size.<ref>{{cite web | last = Haywood | first = Matthew | title=Segwit2x, 'The New York Agreement' | publisher = bravenewcoin.com |date= 16 August 2017 | url =https://bravenewcoin.com/news/segwit2x-the-new-york-agreement/ | accessdate = 6 October 2017 }}</ref> The second half of SegWit2x involved a hard fork in November 2017 to increase the blocksize to 2 megabytes.<ref>{{cite web | last = Hertig | first = Alyssa | title=Explainer: What Is SegWit2x and What Does It Mean for Bitcoin?| publisher = [[CoinDesk]] |date= 12 July 2017 | url =https://www.coindesk.com/explainer-what-is-segwit2x-and-what-does-it-mean-for-bitcoin/ | accessdate = 6 October 2017 }}</ref> On November 8, 2017 the developers of SegWit2x announced that the hard fork planned for around November 16, 2017 was canceled for the time being due to a lack of consensus.<ref>{{cite web | last = Hertig | first = Alyssa | title=2x Called Off: Bitcoin Hard Fork Suspended for Lack of Consensus | publisher = [[CoinDesk]] |date= 8 November 2017 | url =https://www.coindesk.com/2x-called-off-bitcoin-hard-fork-suspended-lack-consensus/ | accessdate = 8 November 2017 }}</ref>

Revision as of 21:56, 1 November 2018

For broader coverage of this topic, see Bitcoin.
Number of transactions per month

The bitcoin scalability problem refers to the discussion concerning the limits on the amount of transactions the bitcoin network can process. It is related to the fact that records (known as blocks) in the bitcoin blockchain are limited in size and frequency.[1] Bitcoin's blocks contain the transactions on the bitcoin network.[2]: ch. 2  The on chain transaction processing capacity of the bitcoin network is limited by the average block creation time of 10 minutes and the block size limit. These jointly constrain the network's throughput. The transaction processing capacity maximum is estimated between 3.3 and 7 transactions per second.[3] There are various proposed and activated solutions to address this issue.

Background

The block size limit has created a bottleneck in bitcoin, resulting in increasing transaction fees and delayed processing of transactions that cannot be fit into a block.[4] Various proposals have come forth on how to scale bitcoin, and a contentious debate has resulted. Business Insider in 2017 characterized this debate as an "ideological battle over bitcoin's future."[5]

Forks

Part of this section is transcluded from Fork (blockchain). (edit | history)

Increasing the network's transaction processing limit requires making changes to the technical workings of bitcoin, in a process known as a fork. Forks can be grouped into two types:

Hard fork

A hard fork is a change to the blockchain protocol that is not backward compatible and requires all users to upgrade their software in order to continue participating in the network. In a hard fork, the network splits into two separate versions: one that follows the new rules and one that follows the old rules.

For example, Ethereum was hard forked in 2016 to "make whole" the investors in The DAO, which had been hacked by exploiting a vulnerability in its code. In this case, the fork resulted in a split creating Ethereum and Ethereum Classic chains. In 2014 the Nxt community was asked to consider a hard fork that would have led to a rollback of the blockchain records to mitigate the effects of a theft of 50 million NXT from a major cryptocurrency exchange. The hard fork proposal was rejected, and some of the funds were recovered after negotiations and ransom payment. Alternatively, to prevent a permanent split, a majority of nodes using the new software may return to the old rules, as was the case of bitcoin split on 12 March 2013.[6]

A more recent hard-fork example is of Bitcoin in 2017, which resulted in a split creating Bitcoin Cash.[7] The network split was mainly due to a disagreement in how to increase the transactions per second to accommodate for demand.[8]

Bitcoin Cash is a hard fork of bitcoin increasing the maximum block size. Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Unlimited all supported an increase to the maximum block size through a hard fork.

Soft fork

A soft fork is a backward-compatible change to the blockchain protocol that allows new rules to be introduced without requiring all users to upgrade their software. In a soft fork, a majority of the network’s miners implement the new rules and begin following the updated version of the blockchain. The rest of the network can continue to follow the blockchain, but they will be unable to validate that new blocks follow the updated rules. Because a soft fork is backward-compatible, it does not result in the creation of a new blockchain or the splitting of the network. Instead, it allows the network to gradually transition to the new rules while still maintaining compatibility with the old rules. [9]

Segregated Witness is an example of a soft fork.

Efficiency improvements

Technical optimizations may decrease the amount of computing resources required to receive, process and record bitcoin transactions, allowing increased throughput without placing extra demand on the bitcoin network. These modifications can be to either the network, in which case a fork is required, or to individual node software (such as Bitcoin Core).

  • Merkelized Abstract Syntax Trees (MAST) is a proposal by Johnson Lau which reduces the size of smart contracts (complex scripts), and increases their privacy.[11]
  • A 2006 paper by Mihir Bellare enables signature aggregation in O(1) size, which means that it will not take more space to have multiple signers. Bellare-Neven reduces to Schnorr for a single key.[12] Bellare-Neven has been implemented.[13][14][better source needed]

"Layer 2" systems

Protocols such as the Lightning Network and Tumblebit have been proposed which operate on top of the bitcoin network as a cache to allow payments to be effected that are not immediately put on the blockchain.[15]

  • The Lightning Network is a protocol that aims to improve bitcoin's scalability and speed. The Lightning Network requires putting a funding transaction on the blockchain to open a channel.[16] Payment provider Bitrefill tweeted in December 2017 claiming it was the first lightning transaction operating on the bitcoin network.[17] In January 2018 Blockstream launched a payment processing system for web retailers called "Lightning Charge", noted that lightning was live on mainnet with 200 nodes operating as of January 27, 2018 and advised it should still be considered "in testing".[18][19] On March 15, 2018, Lightning Labs released the beta version of its lnd Lightning Network implementation for bitcoin mainnet,[20] and on March 28, 2018, ACINQ released a mainnet beta of its eclair implementation and desktop application.[21]

Block size increases

Transaction throughput is limited practically by a parameter known as the block size limit. Various increases to this limit, and proposals to remove it completely, have been proposed over bitcoin's history.

Activated

  • Segregated Witness (SegWit, BIP 141) is a performed soft fork which solves transaction malleability, a known weakness in bitcoin's security, while also increasing the block size by a factor of approximately two.[22] SegWit works by separating the signature data (the "witness") from the transactions data. Blockstream co-founder and developer Pieter Wuille proposed Segregated Witness in December 2015.[23] SegWit allows for an easier implementation of the Lightning Network.[24] The method used to activate SegWit was BIP 91.

Proposed

  • In 2015, BIP 100 by Jeff Garzik and BIP 101 by Gavin Andresen were introduced.[25] By mid-2015, some developers were supporting a block size limit of as high as eight megabytes.[26]
  • Bitcoin XT was proposed in 2015 to increase the transaction processing capacity of bitcoin by increasing the block size limit.[27]
  • Bitcoin Classic was proposed in 2016 to increase the transaction processing capacity of bitcoin by increasing the block size limit.[28]
  • "The Hong Kong Agreement" was a 2016 agreement of some miners and developers that contained a timetable that would see both the activation of the Segregated Witness (SegWit) proposal established in December 2015 by Bitcoin Core developers, and the development of a block size limit increased to 2 MB. However, both timelines were missed.[29]
  • SegWit2x was a proposed hard fork of the cryptocurrency bitcoin. The implementation of Segregated Witness in August 2017 was only the first half of the so-called "New York Agreement" by which those who wanted to increase effective block size by SegWit compromised with those who wanted to increase block size by a hard fork to a larger block size.[30] The second half of SegWit2x involved a hard fork in November 2017 to increase the blocksize to 2 megabytes.[31] On November 8, 2017 the developers of SegWit2x announced that the hard fork planned for around November 16, 2017 was canceled for the time being due to a lack of consensus.[32]
  • Bitcoin Unlimited advocated for miner flexibility to increase the block size limit and is supported by mining pools ViaBTC, AntPool and investor Roger Ver.[33] Bitcoin Unlimited's proposal is different from Bitcoin Core in that the block size parameter is not hard-coded, and rather the nodes and miners flag support for the size that they want, using an idea they refer to as 'emergent consensus.'[33] Those behind Bitcoin Unlimited proposal argue that from an ideological standpoint the miners should decide about the scaling solution since they are the ones whose hardware secure the network.[34] Bitcoin Unlimited now focuses on developing node software for Bitcoin Cash.
  • BIP148 was a proposal that has been referred to as a User Activated Soft Fork (UASF) or a "populist uprising." It was planned to be triggered on 1 August 2017, and it sought to force miners to activate Segregated Witness.[35] It became unnecessary because miners opted to vote for SegWit activation using the BIP91 scheme.

See also

References

  1. ^ Hayes, Adam (18 October 2016). "The Three Major Bitcoin Protocols Explained". Investopedia. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
  2. ^ Andreas M. Antonopoulos (April 2014). Mastering Bitcoin. Unlocking Digital Crypto-Currencies. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-1-4493-7404-4.
  3. ^ Croman, Kyle; Eyal, Ittay (2016). "On Scaling Decentralized Blockchains" (PDF). doi:10.1007/978-3-662-53357-4_8. Retrieved 10 December 2017. The maximum throughput is the maximum rate at which the blockchain can confirm transactions. Today, Bitcoin's maximum throughput is 3.3–7 transactions/sec [1]. This number is constrained by the maximum block size and the inter-block time. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ^ Jordan Pearson (14 October 2016). "'Bitcoin Unlimited' Hopes to Save Bitcoin from Itself". Motherboard. Vice Media LLC. Retrieved 17 January 2017.
  5. ^ Oscar Williams-Grut and Rob Price (26 March 2017). "A Bitcoin civil war is threatening to tear the digital currency in 2 — here's what you need to know". Business Insider. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
  6. ^ Lee, Timothy (12 March 2013). "Major glitch in Bitcoin network sparks sell-off; price temporarily falls 23%". Arstechnica. Archived from the original on 20 April 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  7. ^ Smith, Oli (21 January 2018). "Bitcoin price RIVAL: Cryptocurrency 'faster than bitcoin' will CHALLENGE market leaders". Express. Archived from the original on 28 March 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  8. ^ "Bitcoin split in two, here's what that means". CNN. 1 August 2017. Archived from the original on 27 February 2018. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  9. ^ "What is Fork? Fork in 3 Title". CryptocurrencyTick. 24 December 2022. Archived from the original on 25 December 2022. Retrieved 24 December 2022.
  10. ^ Alyssa Hertig (31 December 2017). "Most Influential in Blockchain 2017 #7: Pieter Wuille". CoinDesk. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
  11. ^ "Inside MAST: The Little-Known Plan to Advance Bitcoin Smart Contracts - CoinDesk". CoinDesk. 7 February 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
  12. ^ "kanzure/diyhpluswiki". GitHub.
  13. ^ https://github.com/bitcoin-core/secp256k1/pull/461
  14. ^ "Note that aggsig paper was rejected by ysangkok · Pull Request #479 · bitcoin-core/bitcoincore.org". GitHub.
  15. ^ Torpley, Kyle (14 March 2017). "Bitcoin is Now Useless for Micropayments, But Solutions are Coming". Nasdaq. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
  16. ^ "Lightning Network, Explained". CoinTelegraph. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  17. ^ "Payment Provider Bitrefill Runs Successful Lightning Transaction Test". Coindesk. 29 December 2017. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
  18. ^ "Blockstream Launches Micropayments Processing System for Bitcoin Apps". Coindesk. 17 January 2018. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  19. ^ "'UNFAIRLY CHEAP' LIGHTNING NETWORK MAINNET HITS 40 NODES, 60 CHANNELS". Bitcoinist. 18 January 2018. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  20. ^ "Announcing our first Lightning mainnet release, lnd 0.4-beta". Article. Lightning Labs. 15 March 2018.
  21. ^ "ACINQ eclair desktop for mainnet announcement".
  22. ^ Andrew Marshall (20 April 2017). "SegWit, Explained". CoinTelegraph. Retrieved 1 July 2017.
  23. ^ Corin Faife (5 January 2017). "Will 2017 Bring an End to Bitcoin's Great Scaling Debate?". CoinDesk. Retrieved 4 July 2017.
  24. ^ van Wirdum, Aaron (23 August 2017). "Segregated Witness Activates on Bitcoin: This is What to Expect". Bitcoin Magazine. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
  25. ^ Andrew Marshall (2 March 2017). "Bitcoin Scaling Problem, Explained". The Coin Telegraph. Retrieved 4 July 2017.
  26. ^ Evander Smart (19 October 2016). "'Why is My Bitcoin Transaction Taking So Long?' Here's Why". The Coin Telegraph. Retrieved 4 July 2017.
  27. ^ Alex Hern. "Bitcoin's forked: chief scientist launches alternative proposal for the currency". the Guardian. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
  28. ^ Rizzo, Pete (19 January 2016). "Making Sense of Bitcoin's Divisive Block Size Debate". CoinDesk. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
  29. ^ Pete Rizzo & Alyssa Hertig (24 May 2017). "Bitcoin's New Scaling 'Agreement': The Reaction". CoinDesk. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
  30. ^ Haywood, Matthew (16 August 2017). "Segwit2x, 'The New York Agreement'". bravenewcoin.com. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  31. ^ Hertig, Alyssa (12 July 2017). "Explainer: What Is SegWit2x and What Does It Mean for Bitcoin?". CoinDesk. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  32. ^ Hertig, Alyssa (8 November 2017). "2x Called Off: Bitcoin Hard Fork Suspended for Lack of Consensus". CoinDesk. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  33. ^ a b Alyssa Hertig (14 May 2017). "CoinDesk Explainer: The Bitcoin Unlimited Debate". CoinDesk. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
  34. ^ Pete Rizzo (20 March 2017). "CoinDesk Explainer: Bitcoin Unlimited: Mining Power Should Determine Hard Fork". CoinDesk. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
  35. ^ Alyssa Hertig (8 June 2017). "Bitcoin's 'Independence Day': Could Users Tip the Scales in the Scaling Debate?". CoinDesk. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
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