Bitcoin Is Dead, Long Live Bitcoin
Block size isn&#x27;t a free parameter. The team behind btcd, a Bitcoin full node written in Go, made the following observations about block size [1]:<p>1. a 32 MB block, when filled with simple P2PKH transactions, can hold approximately 167,000 transactions, which, assuming a block is mined every 10 minutes, translates to approximately 270 tps<p>2. a single machine acting as a full node takes approximately 10 minutes to verify and process a 32 MB block, meaning that a 32 MB block size is near the maximum one could expect to handle with 1 machine acting as a full node<p>3. a CPU profile of the time spent processing a 32 MB block by a full node is dominated by ECDSA signature verification, meaning that with the current infrastructure and computer hardware, scaling above 300 tps would require a clustered full node where ECDSA signature checking is load balanced across multiple machines.<p>For context, a meager 300 tps is less than 10% of what VISA does - hence this solves no long standing problems in Bitcoin, yet it condemns all the nodes to run in compute clusters in datacenters. Naturally, &quot;small blockists&quot; as we&#x27;re called, point out that this isn&#x27;t how Bitcoin works today at all. Forcing nodes into compute clusters in remote datacenters is a major, sweeping departure from nodes running on home networks with consequences both forseeable and unforseeable.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.conformal.com&#x2F;btcsim-simulating-the-rise-of-bitcoin&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.conformal.com&#x2F;btcsim-simulating-the-rise-of-bit...</a>