Blocksize scaling up to 4 MB can be adopted by 90% of existing nodes and does not pose any risk to the system, according to a research of the New York-based Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute.

The new study entitled “On Scaling Decentralized Blockchains” was prepared by the Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts (IC3) at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. It reveals that approximately 90% of the examined 4,565 nodes (there are currently more than 7,000 nodes) would continue normal operation even with 4 MB blocks. This particular block size would allow to increase the speed of transactions from the current 2,5 to 27 transactions per sec.

Moreover, the study shows that 50% of nodes would have carried on if the block size was extended to 40 MB. The number of transactions processed per second in this case would have increased to 250, or 10 million per day.

According to the research, 40 MB is not the limit for the system. Approximately 10% of examined nodes (about 450) are capable to operate with 200 Mb blocksize. In this case bitcoin network will be able to show the same speed as the global payment systems Visa and Mastercard.

Still, the most convenient blocksize for the bitcoin system as it is now is 4Mb,the experts believe.

“A 4MB block size corresponds to a maximum throughput of at most 27 transactions/sec.”

Block size scaling has been the main point of discussion in the Bitcoin community over the last months. Currently, the block size is 1 MB. Last year many proposals on block size scaling were brought out, the suggested block sizes being 2, 4 and 8 MB, with the view of unlimited increase in the future.

But resent events have shown that the bitcoin community cannot agree even on the modest 2 MB solution. Supporters of the “hard fork” Bitcoin Classic stand for rapid increase of the block size, predicting quick collapse of the bitcoin network if the scaling is not done soon. Supporters of the “soft fork” Segregated Witness plan to scale blocks to 2 MB, but no earlier than in the summer 2017. Some developers even declared that no increase is actually required and it is only necessary to get rid of spam in the blocks.

Elena Platonova