Splitting the blockchain into separate child bockchains

[gollum]

I seriously think the growing size of the blockchain will be a great problem for bitcoin, the blockchain will grow to thousands of terrabytes if bitcoin becomes the no 1 payment system in the world.

Another great problem with bitcoin is its dependence of internet - we must assume that internet will be go down for some parts of the world at some periods. That parts of the world will still need a functioning bitcoin system for local transactions.

My proposal:
Split the blockchain into one root-blockchain and several child-blockchains.
Root-blockchain: bitcoins are mined here and transactions for global transactions occurs here
Child-blockchains: One child-blockchain for each physical economical region, transactions in that region (regional wallets) will only be transmitted in the local blockchain. The only transactions the Root-blockchain will save and transmit is transactions between wallets of differenct regions.
Even if one region lose internet connection to rest of the world forking will be minimal since their local transactions already are isolated to the local blockchain.

[Arcas]

This is unnecessary, because every user has a copy of the entire blockchain. There is no point in having half the blockchain, because what if someone tries to spend on both? Which chain is legitimate?

[gollum]

This is unnecessary, because every user has a copy of the entire blockchain. There is no point in having half the blockchain, because what if someone tries to spend on both? Which chain is legitimate?

I think it is possible, here is an example:

Assume there are many different child blockchains.
First we mine a bitcoin and send it to address root.AAA
Then we send the bitcoin from root.AAA to child001.BBB
From the root-blockchains perspective the bitcoin is saved at child001.BBB
A lot of transactions are done in the blockchain child001 between different addresses, the root-blockchain dont care about what happens with this bitcoin as long as it is inside child001.
Now someone wants to send that coin from child001.CCC to child002.DDD, at this point the root needs to verify that the coin has not been double spent while it was inside child001, after it is verified it is sent to child002.DDD.

[gollum]

What Im suggesting could also be achieved with several cryptocurrencies:

Bitcoin functioning as SWIFT (international payments) and one alt-coin for each continent.

Example of alt-coins:
BitCoinNorthAmerica BTN
BitCoinSouthAmerica BTS
BitCoinAsia BTA
BitCoinAfrica BTF
BitCoinPacific BTP
BitCoinEurope BTE

When you do local transactions in USA you use BitCoinNorthAmerica, but when you want to send money to a friend in England you first sell BTNorthAmerica for BTC, then you buy BTEurope and send to your friends address.
Using altcoins will of course have more transaction costs involved than using child blockchains instead.

[wumpus]

BitCoinNorthAmerica BTN
BitCoinSouthAmerica BTS
BitCoinAsia BTA
BitCoinAfrica BTF
BitCoinPacific BTP
BitCoinEurope BTE

Nah then we're back at the status-quo, locality-based banking system... The goal of bitcoin is to make international payments as effortless and fee-less as local ones.

[gollum]

BitCoinNorthAmerica BTN
BitCoinSouthAmerica BTS
BitCoinAsia BTA
BitCoinAfrica BTF
BitCoinPacific BTP
BitCoinEurope BTE

Nah then we're back at the status-quo, locality-based banking system... The goal of bitcoin is to make international payments as effortless and fee-less as local ones.

Regional bitcoin currencies is not what I prefer, but it will work exactly the same way the real bitcoin works: anyone who wants can mine and run the client for any regional currency. Noone can stop you from running BitCoinAsian even if you live in USA.

What I suggest is: child blockchains that are separated from the root blockchain so users can choose what blockchain they want as their prefered one instead of being part of all transactions.
I know this idea sounds crazy for BitCoin fans, but I think something like this is needed so BitCoin can have a chance to scale up for billions of potential users.

[kjj]

So...  How do you handle coin creation?  How do you keep miners from ignoring all chains other than the one with the most available fees?

I'm handwaving the problems of figuring out which chain you need to look at to see if a transaction is valid, but that doesn't seem to be solvable either.

[gollum]

So...  How do you handle coin creation?  How do you keep miners from ignoring all chains other than the one with the most available fees?

I'm handwaving the problems of figuring out which chain you need to look at to see if a transaction is valid, but that doesn't seem to be solvable either.

Coins should only be created in the root-blockchain.

As long as a coin is traded within a child-blockchain verification is only done at that level. The root-blockchain dont need to waste hashrate and HDD on those transactions.

Root-blockchain verifies transactions within a child-blockchain when a coin is sent outside a child-blockchain.