How many TPS would be needed for Planet Earth?

[norotartagen]

There are 7 billion people on the planet.  Assuming each person gets their own bitcoin wallet, getting everybody onto the system will take 7 billion transactions / 10 transactions per second = 22 years.  Additionally, the human birth rate is about 10 per second, and so bitcoin TPS would have to be at least that great to even keep up.

Comparing TPS with birth rate allows you to estimate how many transactions you can make in your lifetime.  If bitcoin offers 20 TPS and birth rate is 10 per second, then basically you can form a wallet and then make one transaction in your lifetime.  Thus, I think TPS would have to be far greater than the birth rate in order for bitcoin to work as a global currency.

So this topic is to ask the question, given proper application of lightning networks etc, how many TPS do you think would be needed to support a planet of 7 billion people?

[vrm86]

That's good question. If we think about wide adoption of Bitcoin, we should be aware of the network efficiency and capabilities. Many people dream about bitcoin revolution and fiat replacement, but it won't happen without constant BTC network reliability improvements and development. 

[BigBoom3599]

Well, the VISA network currently runs at about 2000tps. I'd imagine the tps for the whole world would be somewhere around roughly 10x that of VISA. If we were to achieve that all with on-chain scaling we'd have to have +3GB blocks! 

[Lauda]

Well, the VISA network currently runs at about 2000tps. I'd imagine the tps for the whole world would be somewhere around roughly 10x that of VISA. If we were to achieve that all with on-chain scaling we'd have to have +3GB blocks!  

That's a vague estimate for the number of people that are currently have access to a bank + are using Visa in comparison to the number of people that are 'banked' and not using Visa + number of users that are unbanked (variable reports; here's one saying the number is 2 Billion). That 2000 TPS is the average that Visa does, not the peak  nor maximum that it is able to do. 20 000 TPS would not be enough for the whole world, especially not during the holidays.
Let's run some numbers here:
Currently, with a block size maximum of 1 MB, we have 7 TPS in theory and 3 TPS in real world usage. If we extrapolate that to 20k TPS with real world usage patterns, that represents an increase by a factor of ~6667. In order to facilitate this kind of TPS, on-chain, we would need 6.67 GB blocks.
You can easily see why this isn't feasible, especially not anytime soon. I'd also like to point out that the estimates may be very wrong with the lack of an adequate method for a good estimation.

[franky1]

now for those that just want a number.. to the OP's question
population= 7bill
tx per month=42(based on real fiat use stats per month as a bases for comparison)

7bill x 42tx=294000000000tx a month
294000000000tx/28/24/6= 72916666.66666667tx/block(10min) = 121,528tx/s (14,468tx/s based on average bitcoin use stats)

now lets clarify

we are not going to have bitcoin as a one world currency - so no doomsday speaches please. bitcoin being a one world currency is worse than 200 fiats combined.

we are not going to have 7billion permenent users tomorrow - so no doomsday speaches please. bitcoin will gain more users but it wont be 7billion tomorrow. bitcoin can grow naturally at a pace that can cope and it certainly wont be 7billion in the next couple decades.

please chillout and refrain from doomsday speaches of short term exaggerations

now that is said.
real world stats show the average fiat citizen uses fiat 42 times a month.
at the moment bitcoin users only use bitcoin 5 times a month. which while looking at the amount of merchants accepting bitcoin (300k) is small and manageable.

anyone shouting that we need to lock peoples funds into LN hubs requiring hub managers to sign off on transactions out of fear of 7billion people piling into bitcoin.. seriously needs to wake up.
we dont need to turn bitcoin into bank2.0 via LN.. we do however need to realise that now that core have deemed 4mb 'safe' we should get core to sort out dynamic blocks to allow for real growth of the expected 7tx/s to 28tx/s which will still be under cores recent backtrack(4mb good)
in the form of 4mb base
or
in the form of 2mb base 4mb weight. (14tx/s) thus they also get their segwit feature they love so much.

as for that 28tx/s this would allow
the current 2mill userbase to do 20tx a month instead of 5tx
or
the current 2mill userbase to grow to 8mill userbase, still doing 5tx a month.

then in a few years(before 2020) look at the 'state of the network' to use consensus to grow the block buffer sizes again to allow more potential growth.
and slowly and naturally grow at a pace that can cope.


oh and if you are going to shout doomsdays of datacentres and excess costs.. please refrain from spewing out those delusions.
bitcoin can happy run on a raspberry pi with a data store the size of a fingernail.
technology of normal cheap desktop computers is superier to that so not an issue.
even telecommunication companies 5 year plan has shown to not be an issue for rational onchain growth.


now then.. there are 4032 bitcoin blocks a month.
average tx=400byte
294000000000tx = 117600000000000bytes a month
117600000000000byte/4032 blocks= 29,166,666,667bytes = 29,166mb blocks = 29.166gb blocks(3.5gb blocks based on average bitcoin use stats)

most will think 29gb(3.5gb) blocks is crazy. but be realistic. no one in reality will see 7billion people jump into bitcoin tomorrow.
but here is the thing...

only 20 years ago
if you told people that were on dialup when a song(3mb) took 10 minutes to download, that in a game running in HD while livestreaming it to twitch would require 1megabyte a second.. they would shout dont bother making the game online. it would fail.

if you told people that had a max hard drive of 4gb that a game would require 80gb, they would shout dont bother making the game. it will fail.

yep thats right 20 years ago 4gb hard drives were the max available at consumer level.. thats currently 1000x less than todays consumer level
yep thats right 20 years ago 56k internet was the max available at consumer level.. thats 100x less than todays consumer level

so imagine it like this.. 29gb(3.5gb) in 20 years will have the same 'feel' as what we envision as 29mb(3.5mb) today. we will think its childsplay and not an issue.

but as i said even in 20 years we wont have 7billion bitcoiners. and those that are using bitcoin wont be using it 42x a month like they do with fiat.
so that 29gb(3.5gb) block is just a doomsday number of worsecase scenario but has no place in reality and should not be part of any debate today or anytime soon.

[Lauren Smith]

After reading this.

People need to stop having babies damn ! Most of it is from middle Africa outwards. On the outskirts (north & south Africa) are the least birthrates. What you raise here is interesting. Goes to show how much computing power is behind all those transactions.

[Lauda]

After reading this.

People need to stop having babies damn ! Most of it is from middle Africa outwards. On the outskirts (north & south Africa) are the least birthrates. What you raise here is interesting. Goes to show how much computing power is behind all those transactions.

No. That's just your uneducated opinion. High birth rate in certain areas does not need to stop, that's just the natural cycle. Demographic transition has 5 steps, i.e. most countries are already in the 4th/5th step while the relatively undeveloped ones are still in the earlier stages. This is what it is in a nutshell:


Where there currently is a high birth rate, there usually is a high death rate that follows. Eventually these balance themselves out, not that this matters for Bitcoin.

now for those that just want a number.. to the OP's question
population= 7bill
tx per month=42(based on real fiat use stats per month as a bases for comparison)

I'd like to see the source for this number as I have not seen it somewhere else. I'll assume that your calculation serves the purpose of an average number of TPS needed.

most will think 29gb(3.5gb) blocks is crazy. but be realistic. no one in reality will see 7billion people jump into bitcoin tomorrow.

Indeed. This thread, and those alike are actually very often just pointless at this time.

[Xester]

Having a huge birthrate does not concern bitcoin. It is not something that we must be concerned of and consider as a big deal. Before those children become capable of using bitcoins the technology has already improved. One of the comments here is correct that todays issue will be considered a child play tomorrow. Due to advancement of technology the topic that we are talking right now is not a big deal anymore and also when that happens we are no longer  alive, so let us give that problem to the younger generations.

[coinsocieties]

The question I would have is if Bitcoin could make those changes to keep up with the demand if it was ever to get that large?  That is a lot of transactions and I want to see it get that high, but how can the system increase the number of transactions it processes?  does this have to do with the mining?

[franky1]

now for those that just want a number.. to the OP's question
population= 7bill
tx per month=42(based on real fiat use stats per month as a bases for comparison)

I'd like to see the source for this number as I have not seen it somewhere else. I'll assume that your calculation serves the purpose of an average number of TPS needed.

fiat number is from Statistica, credicards.com and several other sources
i prefer to grab info from one site and compare it to lots of different sources to check and double check

it was something like (not verbatim so dont quote me exactly) 12tx debitcard 10tx credit card 7 wire transfer/billpayment 8ATM and the rest was cheques and other(paypal/WU/unionpay) per month

i found some other sites suggest debit/credit card usage was only 5-6 a month. but it didnt account for people with multiple accounts/card types where average person has 2 debit cards 2 credit cards.

yes some people only have one card, while others have 6+...

it also didnt account for wire transfers cheques, ATM usage, which means based on per person(not card) the numbers also substantiated the ~42tx a month stat.

in 2012 it was about 40tx but more recently it was 42tx a month (from memory)

then i also looked at my own life and all the bills i pay and amount of times i shop and done some checking with others too and came to similar numbers.

statista is a great source but i like to double check things.
EG
look at your own lifestyle
rent, local taxes, water rates, electric, gas, phone/internet - thats like 6 wire transfers
then think how often you would buy a coffee or sandwich with debit card each week. and do your grocery shopping.. that can be over 20 a month
for your credit/debit usage. think about how often you visit an ATM. i averaged 2 a week so that was 8 a month. then the left over is other payment methods.

yea some people stay in a basement and do 2 grocery shops using debit a month and have 6 wire transfers. totallying 10tx
yes some people love to shop every day and do 60 shops a month (visit 2-3 stores a day) and have many wire transfers to swap money from debit/checking account over to repay the credit and store cards. totalling 100tx

but an average of 40-42 seems to work out right based on multiple sources
as for the bitcoin 5tx stat.
well thats more simple..
~2500tx*144*28=10mill tx
2mill users/10mill tx=5tx a month
which looking at the lower 300,000 bitcoin merchants compared to the number of fiat merchants.. seems about right.
yes some people are faucet raiders and daytrading, gamblers.. but then there are hoarders too.. so 5 seems right.

[Kprawn]

Most of the people on planet earth are uneducated and unbanked, so these numbers are highly inflated. Even if someone else created this for

them, they would not do this task at the same time. This would happen over many years, like banks have been doing it with bank accounts

and credit card applications. In 2012, one in three workers worldwide – some 1.1 billion people – were unemployed. 

[Carlton Banks]

In 2012, one in three workers worldwide – some 1.1 billion people – were unemployed.  

If the protection racket using the criminal alias "government" would leave those people the fuck alone, they could:

• take a plot of unclaimed wilderness
• use local unclaimed resources to make tools
• use local unclaimed resources to build shelter from the elements
• raise crops or livestock to feed themselves
• trade the surplus so they can make a decent life for themselves

Yet the protection racket's propaganda will not allow it, and so neither will their foolish followers. And can you tell me what they would be doing wrong? Not taking anything that wasn't theirs, just working for themselves independently and responsibly? So that they can have a life?

[cellard]

VISA is not enough, in order to cater for the necessity of a globally connected economy, we would probably be looking at trillions (yes with a T) of tarnsactions per second. This is only and only possible throught a secondary layer solution like the lightning network. We will Never get anywhere by scaling onchain, no matter how much we increase the blocksize, it will be ridiculously inneficient in trying to fill in the amount of transactions that a global mainstream situation would require, this is why we need segwit anyway, because lihgnint network works better with segwit, so by blocking segwit you block bitcoin's future.

[franky1]

VISA is not enough, in order to cater for the necessity of a globally connected economy, we would probably be looking at trillions (yes with a T) of tarnsactions per second. This is only and only possible throught a secondary layer solution like the lightning network. We will Never get anywhere by scaling onchain, no matter how much we increase the blocksize, it will be ridiculously inneficient in trying to fill in the amount of transactions that a global mainstream situation would require, this is why we need segwit anyway, because lihgnint network works better with segwit, so by blocking segwit you block bitcoin's future.

LN has its place for faucet raiders, adsense, streaming services, gamblers and day traders.
but those only doing 1 transaction a day or week wont benefit.

as for talking about doomsdays of needing to cope with trillians of transactions and 7 billion people .. again no
bitcoin wont ever have 7billion users.

be rational and realistic.

also however many max bitcoin users there ever will be. this wont happen tomorrow or this year or in the next couple decades. so there is plenty of time for natural progressive onchain growth.

there is absolutely no reason to halt onchain growth out of fear of doomsdays of trillions of transactions.
just the the onchain growth happen, without any of the crappy one time gestures of pretend growth the core devs are promoting they are allowing.. and instead let real natural onchain scaling occur, as it should.

anyone suggesting LN is the end solution for bitcoin either doesnt understand bitcoin/LN fully and is just regurgitating a script they read. or they want LN for commercial or biased selfish profit. not caring about bitcoins ethos of permissionless open payment network.