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Talking about religious or political topics at the dinner table often leads to heated arguments. Likewise, never bring up the block size issue in front of Bitcoin enthusiasts. Calling for a lower block size is sure to spark controversy these days. Bitcoin itself faces serious scalability problems. How can smaller blocks solve these problems? Its counter-intuitive to say the least.
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However, there is some truth to the smaller blocks. The less data in each block, the easier it is to check the transactions in it. Since transactions will be verified by more parties, blocks will be more trustworthy. Furthermore, from a philosophical standpoint, smaller blocks are consistent with Bitcoins idea of decentralization: the more active participants are in validating transactions, the more resilient the network will be.
Who wouldnt want a more decentralized and resilient Bitcoin blockchain?
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Small block advocate Luke Dashjr posted a poll where Bitcoin enthusiasts can vote for the community between August 1st and December 31st, 2019. If a majority of nodes agree, the Bitcoin network undergoes a soft fork in favor of smaller blocks.
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Is now the right time to reduce the block size?
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Interestingly, this isnt the first time Luke has come up with this concept. Back in January 2017, he proposed a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) calling for the block size to be reduced to 300kB. At the time, however, his proposal was ignored. There are currently two circumstances that are gaining support and attention for the proposal to reduce the block size.
node reduction
The number of active nodes on the Bitcoin network has been decreasing.
A brief addition of information is needed here: two types of nodes allow users to connect to the blockchain.
- Fully validating nodes (also known as full nodes), validating every transaction in a new block. Unfortunately, these nodes are expensive and difficult to run.
- SPV nodes (simple payment verification nodes, also known as lightweight nodes) are easier to operate. However, it has two limitations: they require full nodes to access the blockchain, and they only accept but not validate blocks of transactions.
Luke Dashjr warned that in the past year alone, the number of full nodes has decreased from 100,000 to 60,000. This decline is worrying because the lower the number of full nodes, the higher the risk to the security of the network. In fact, if the number of full nodes continues to decline, lightweight nodes may one day have to resort to centralized services to connect to the Bitcoin blockchain.
As Blockstream’s head of strategy Samson Mow explained in a post on Hard Fork, block size affects how decentralized the network is: if full nodes are overweight, the network can end up forming poles around data centers.
The Lightning Network is on the rise
Bitcoin developers do not deny the loss of small blocks, but believe that adopting second-layer solutions will offset this problem. The Lightning Network is just such a second-layer solution.
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Does the community support Luke?
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Apart from people like Roger Ver who completely reject small blocks, many crypto experts believe that Luke Dashjr is technically correct. However, they do not believe that switching to smaller blocks is the only solution.
For example, a drop in the number of full nodes can be addressed without switching to smaller blocks. As an example, a fraud proof patch can bridge the gap between lightweight nodes and full nodes. If a full node detects an anomaly in a block to be validated, it will issue a fraud proof as a warning to the rest of the network to quarantine the block.
It is worth noting that while fraud proofs can address overall security risks, it does not improve the security of lightweight nodes to the level of full nodes.
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in conclusion
in conclusion
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In conclusion, limiting the block size will simplify the verification process. The more people who can contribute to validating blocks, the more reliable, resilient, and decentralized the network becomes.
