4 ms·

Where do you get 150 000 kW? Even assuming all the miners are the best I could find (Achilles lab series) [1] that comes to 190000kW based on current hashrate [

Where do you get 150 000 kW? Even assuming all the miners are the best I could find (Achilles lab series) [1] that comes to 190000kW based on current hashrate [2]. Your transactions/second is also bit off. Right now based on blockchain.info the highest transaction day had 115787 transactions [3]. And that day the backlog of unconfirmed transactions got as high as almost 6000 unconfirmed transactions [4]. It doesn't matter at all if the network can "theoretically" support 7tps if it chokes at 1.3tps That brings the actual kWh cost into 40kWh/transaction and up to the same ballback as what GP had. Based on the arguments on forums right now it looks that increasing the block size is impossible. Because that would hard fork the blockchain. When new coins are no longer being awarded to miners then people will have to start to pay the transaction fees themselves. Right now the mining is subsidized by what basically amounts to printing money and thus effectively is a small inflationary tax to everyone using bitcoin. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison [2] https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate [3] https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions [4] https://imgur.com/GAklIdZ https://imgur.com/GAklIdZ The most delicious moment was not screencapped, but this is quite close. Even as this was happening the miners happily issued small blocks (500kB and less).

vanzard 12y ago
The network never "choked" at 1.3tps. There are peaks of activity near the theoretical max of 7 tps (check for blocks close to 1MB in size). There are thousands of unconfirmed transactions because their senders chose to include fees that are too low (or no fee at all), so miners decide to not process them. > When new coins are no longer being awarded to miners then people will have to start to pay the transaction fees themselves That's not how it works. People (senders) already pay the transaction fees themselves.
- danbruc 12y ago
  Yes, they pay the transaction fees, but not the transaction costs. He wanted to say that transaction fees will become as high as the transaction costs.
- sharpneli 12y ago
  7tps is achievable only when every transaction has a single input and a single output. Real transactions are not like that, not by far. People do not include enough transaction fee. I just clicked open a block with most transactions on the recent list on blockchain frontpage https://blockchain.info/block/000000000000000017f4d893e29b1e5b0ba5d65d0416aed997afbf836c63f17c https://blockchain.info/block/000000000000000017f4d893e29b1e... +.1715506 worth of transaction fees. That's by far not enough to support a decent mining rate. In order to support current mining rate a single block must have roughly 25BTC wort of transactions fees.

vanzard 12y ago

The network never "choked" at 1.3tps. There are peaks of activity near the theoretical max of 7 tps (check for blocks close to 1MB in size). There are thousands of unconfirmed transactions because their senders chose to include fees that are too low (or no fee at all), so miners decide to not process them. > When new coins are no longer being awarded to miners then people will have to start to pay the transaction fees themselves That's not how it works. People (senders) already pay the transaction fees themselves.

danbruc 12y ago
Yes, they pay the transaction fees, but not the transaction costs. He wanted to say that transaction fees will become as high as the transaction costs.
sharpneli 12y ago
7tps is achievable only when every transaction has a single input and a single output. Real transactions are not like that, not by far. People do not include enough transaction fee. I just clicked open a block with most transactions on the recent list on blockchain frontpage https://blockchain.info/block/000000000000000017f4d893e29b1e5b0ba5d65d0416aed997afbf836c63f17c https://blockchain.info/block/000000000000000017f4d893e29b1e... +.1715506 worth of transaction fees. That's by far not enough to support a decent mining rate. In order to support current mining rate a single block must have roughly 25BTC wort of transactions fees.