The steady march towards unlimited scaling of Bitcoin is happening. The Bitcoin SV (BSV) Node team have release version 0.2.1 on July 12, and it brings several improvements for miners in preparation for the more significant—and hotly anticipated—Quasar protocol upgrade on July 24. These updates also mark steps towards the ultimate “Genesis” upgrade in February 2020, which will bring an almost complete return to the original Bitcoin protocol.

Version 0.2.1 is an optional release; it adds certain improvements, but it is not required for the Quasar protocol upgrade scheduled for July 24. However, version 0.2.1 contains some improvements that BSV miners will want to check out as it provides several useful performance upgrades for producing big blocks.

Notably, version 0.2.1 will increase the UTXO cache default to hold the entire UTXO set in cache. This will result in performance improvements when validating transactions, which, as the blockchain becomes more active with big blocks full of transactions, will be a crucial step for miners. Validating those thousands of transactions faster will be a big advantage in the new BSV economy, where transactions can be just as valuable as a block reward.

Other changes include a now configurable TestBlockValidity() call, which can help miners reduce the amount of time it takes to assemble a block. It will also have transaction details in the RPC getblock, which will improve integrating other systems with the node.

Besides some other minor refactoring and other improvements, version 0.2.1 will also support OP_FALSE and OP_RETURN as standard transactions, and remove Bitcoin ABC cashaddr as an acceptable address format. These steps help bring Bitcoin closer to its original protocol, and continue the path towards the Genesis upgrade in February 2020.

Version 0.2.1 comes just two weeks ahead of the Quasar upgrade on July 24, which will increase the maximum default block sizes on the mainnet to 2GB (2000 megabytes), a huge step towards massive scaling on the blockchain. While some miners may still adjust their maximum acceptable block size to lower than 2GB, the Quasar upgrade sends a powerful message: with a roadmap to massive scaling, enterprises can realistically begin using Bitcoin for global data transactions of all types.

And even the Quasar upgrade will itself be a step towards the bigger goals in the Genesis upgrade. Scheduled for February 4, 2020, the Genesis upgrade will bring BSV as close to its original protocol as possible with several protocol restoration changes, and the plan is to completely remove limits on default block sizes, introducing a path for unlimited scaling to the BSV blockchain. Miners and the network will accept what block sizes are needed to satisfy market demand.

By getting back to the original protocol as Satoshi designed it, and following his plan to scale massively, BSV is following Bitcoin’s original vision to become the world’s digital money and public data ledger. By scaling to the needs of the world’s businesses and economies, and maintaining the stability of the original Bitcoin protocol, the BSV blockchain will be the best platform for the world do to business on.

Note from BSV Node team: the version 0.2.1 upgrade is optional. Anyone who prefers to stick with BSV Node 0.2.0 can still upgrade directly to Quasar for the July 24 network upgrade.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeek’s Bitcoin for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoin—as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto—and blockchain.