Bitcoin Forum

As some others i have noticed that some transactions take very long for being sent. This does not happen always but sometimes even bigger transactions take very long (up to 7 days longest transaction).

So my question: Would it help if the btcoin blocktime would be smaller? Let's say every 2min a block? If not why?

Also is there a problem with coins and difficulty of only 30 seconds?

Thank you!

Why are confirmations desired?

Security that someone won't rewrite the chain and undo the transaction.

Everything else equal, faster blocks have less security so you need more confirmations to get the same level of security that you would get from slower blocks.

With the same hash rate, you would need 5 two minute blocks to obtain the same level of security as 1 ten minute block.

Ok thank you.

So let say BTC would have 10 confirmations required. And 10min block time. Other coin musst have 20 confirmations on 5min blocktime for the same security? And with 100 confirmations for 1min block time?

Smaller blocks (e.g. 250 kB every 2,5 minutes) can lead to a more efficient and faster block propagation and less CPU/RAM usage. So it's a possible component of a scalability solution.

But the risk of orphan blocks is higher, so I consider it improbable that this kind of change will be implemented because of Bitcoin's "Security first" policy. Experimental cryptocurrencies like Ethereum obviously don't have to follow such a conservative policy. And you must also consider that the block reward schedule must be changed, so it's not that trivial.

A proposal that is been discussed are Extension Blocks, that are a kind of additional blocks that must not be downloaded by all clients.

This is something that I have been suggesting fior some time. It will happen in the future if Bitcoin is to remain a payment system, and not just an investment  and hedge against fiat devaluation.