The Perplexities of Scaling the Bitcoin Network
Bitcoin has scalability troubles due to its blockchain technology upon which it is built. This article will touch on some of the critical scaling challenges that face Bitcoin network.
It took less than a decade for it to go mainstream. Although it was slow at first, more people and businesses have adopted Bitcoin making it the most popular digital currency in existence. While most Bitcoin users are just concerned with how they can use it and benefit from its uses, others are worried about other issues such as scale.
Bitcoin’s network is facing difficulties related to scaling up; there are growing concerns about bitcoin’s future in this space. On one hand, bitcoin is growing in popularity with crypto analysts predicting further growth in the coming years. But on the other hand, block chain network supporting bitcoin will have to be scaled up to meet increasing demands. That is where challenges lie.
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Understanding Blockchain Network
The blockchain supports Bitcoin. The blockchain represents a distributed ledger having nodes spread throughout different geographic regions across the globe.Blockchain networks are made up of computers called nodes that verify transactions of Bitcoins.Network’s control isn’t centralized because no government agency or entity can commandeer it.
Each node located on the blockchain-based Bitcoin system carries equal rights and might over all operations within the crypto network.This happens through solving complex mathematical problems referred to as mining.In turn, miners append new block onto existing chain of blocks called blockchain.
On average, generating one block in the blockchain takes around ten minutes.Thus if numerous transactions require verification and addition into bitcoin network, then more time will be necessary.That explains why there exist scalability problems within bitcoin’s blockchain.
Transaction Volumes
Currently, under the Bitcoin blockchain protocol whereby a single block takes approximately ten minutes to add, the network can process roughly seven transactions every second. It is far slower than other systems such as Ripple which does about 1,500 transactions in a similar period of time.The protocol of the blockchain embeds time that is used for processing.
With increasing demand for Bitcoins, there are more and more Bitcoin transactions. The need to verify these transactions on the blockchain network is also increasing though. However, Bitcoin transaction processing capacity has not increased over this time. Hence there should be a better match between demand and supply.
This problem could be solved by expanding or increasing capacity or scaling up. This would mean probably speeding up transaction processing by adding nodes and reducing block time to below 10 minutes. Nevertheless, it’s easier said than done.
Bitcoin’s blockchain was developed by one Satoshi Nakamoto as tamper-proof system. And since no one knows who they are, there can be no conversation between them or him about bitcoin scaling anymore.Moreover, the developer created unique blockchain technology which ain’t easy to tamper with.It even needs some nodes operating on the network to understand it well enough.
While it may be difficult for anyone to scale bitcoin given the inherent complexities and unknowns, it would mean making major modifications in the existing network protocol just to increase transaction speeds but this seems improbable as the original inventors created a foolproof system that cannot be meddled with.
Lastly, there is also the issue of the unintended effects of Bitcoin scaling. The Bitcoin blockchain has shown that it can do more than simply supporting Bitcoin. One example is smart transactions. Prior to scaling Bitcoin, all possible consequences including those on current uses should be considered. It’s almost impossible ruling out crashing the network.
Conclusion
Despite increasing demand and growth forecasts, serious scalability issues exist around bitcoin. Thus, introducing any changes that could help in scalability within the present bitcoin protocol is impossible since it is set in stone.
