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> 7 transactions per second maximum worldwide What is the reason for this? Source?

by rattray 11y ago

patio11 11y ago
The Bitcoin "protocol" (for reasoning on the scare quotes search HN for me and that word) allows blocks to get up to 1 MB in size, currently. A block is mined once every ten minutes. The smallest transaction legal in the protocol is ~224 bytes. You can do the math from here. There's a contentious proposal in the community right now to raise the block size and hence the implicit maximum TPS of the network. Why is that contentious? Oh boy, long story.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I would be interested in hearing that story. Care to describe it, or point towards some reading material? :).
  - nemild 11y ago
    Start here: http://davidsterry.com/blog/2015/06/arguments-in-the-bitcoin-block-size-debate/ http://davidsterry.com/blog/2015/06/arguments-in-the-bitcoin... Also: https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-1-macro-block-trends https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysi... https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-2-macro-transaction-trends https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysi... https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-3-miner-incentives https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysi... https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-4-simulating-practical-capacity https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysi... https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-5-stress-test-analysis https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysi... Hit me up if you need more reading.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Thanks for the links!
joosters 11y ago
The blockchain generates one new block roughly every 10 minutes. Each block is currently limited to around 1MB (but for lots of reasons, the blocks might be smaller) Each transaction in a block takes up some amount of space. Depending on the number of inputs and outputs, a transaction can vary in size from around 200 bytes to several kilobytes. Assuming a 1024kb block and (say) 256 bytes per transaction, that's 4096 transactions every 600 seconds, or roughly 7 a second.
abledon 11y ago
https://imgur.com/SbOzKdJ https://imgur.com/SbOzKdJ

> 7 transactions per second maximum worldwide What is the reason for this? Source?

by rattray 11y ago

> 7 transactions per second maximum worldwide What is the reason for this? Source?

The Bitcoin "protocol" (for reasoning on the scare quotes search HN for me and that word) allows blocks to get up to 1 MB in size, currently. A block is mined once every ten minutes. The smallest transaction legal in the protocol is ~224 bytes. You can do the math from here. There's a contentious proposal in the community right now to raise the block size and hence the implicit maximum TPS of the network. Why is that contentious? Oh boy, long story.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
I would be interested in hearing that story. Care to describe it, or point towards some reading material? :).
- nemild 11y ago
  Start here: http://davidsterry.com/blog/2015/06/arguments-in-the-bitcoin-block-size-debate/ http://davidsterry.com/blog/2015/06/arguments-in-the-bitcoin... Also: https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-1-macro-block-trends https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysi... https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-2-macro-transaction-trends https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysi... https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-3-miner-incentives https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysi... https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-4-simulating-practical-capacity https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysi... https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-5-stress-test-analysis https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysi... Hit me up if you need more reading.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Thanks for the links!

joosters 11y ago

The blockchain generates one new block roughly every 10 minutes. Each block is currently limited to around 1MB (but for lots of reasons, the blocks might be smaller) Each transaction in a block takes up some amount of space. Depending on the number of inputs and outputs, a transaction can vary in size from around 200 bytes to several kilobytes. Assuming a 1024kb block and (say) 256 bytes per transaction, that's 4096 transactions every 600 seconds, or roughly 7 a second.

abledon 11y ago

https://imgur.com/SbOzKdJ https://imgur.com/SbOzKdJ