Will Bitcoin scale in 5-10years?

[justone123]

Can somebody explain their vision as to how Bitcoin(and scallability issue) will exist in say next 5-10 years?

As we know, currently there are only few transactions per second at maximum, the question is, HOW is it going to scale? Is the solution still just a myth? Or is it still an experiment and it may never scale? With LN you'll be able to transact "freely" once the funds are committed, but still a on-chain fee will have to be paid to open and close the channel...

So what's your vision in 5-10 years. Will bitcoin have 100k/tps scallability, or will it be too expensive to use for payments(and only usable as gold) and can never scale?

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[Xynerise]

There's a lot in the works.
We already have Segwit that gives us a 50% increase.
Bech32 segwit transactions with standard 1 input, 2 outputs are already 38% less than "legacy" transactions.

Also, assuming everyone used Segwit, with the smallest block transaction type of 1 input and 1 output, the block would be able to contain 12.195 transactions / block compared to legacy transactions of the same size that will fill the block with 5,208 transactions.

There are also Schnorr signatures that allow for the signing of multiple inputs with just one signature.
This will bring about another 25% block size.
https://bitcoincore.org/en/2017/03/23/schnorr-signature-aggregation/
https://medium.com/@SDWouters/why-schnorr-signatures-will-help-solve-2-of-bitcoins-biggest-problems-today-9b7718e7861c

There's also mimblewimble, a radical bitcoin architecture change that gives total privacy, reduces blockchain size and increases performance.
https://scalingbitcoin.org/papers/mimblewimble.txt

And of course, the coup de grâce, the Lightning Network.
Everyone should be familiar with the lightning network and how it allows for quick, instant, transactions without having to confirm immediately on the blockchain, while yet leveraging the security of the blockchain itself.
https://medium.com/@subhan_nadeem/future-of-bitcoin-cc6936ba0b99

If you want to see how it works then get a testnet wallet here: https://htlc.me/
And buy a block of coffee at starblocks: https://starblocks.acinq.co/#/

If you want to do the whole thing by opening a channel then Download the eclair wallet from the Play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.acinq.eclair.wallet

Get testnet bitcoins here: https://testnet.manu.backend.hamburg/faucet

And top up at Bitrefill: https://lightning.bitrefill.com/steam-eur-voucher/

https://blog.bitrefill.com/test-instructions-lightning-on-bitrefill-ef6db8714b00

https://news.bitcoin.com/first-real-bitcoin-lightning-network-payment-completed-via-bitrefill/

[Kakmakr]

The one good thing about Bitcoin is the comprehensive roadmap to adress the network capacity to handle more transactions and to plan for the future. They have been working on this for years and everything is tested and validated by Peer review.  https://bitcoincore.org/en/2015/12/23/capacity-increases-faq/

People should just accept these changes and implement them, so that we can go forward.

[gabbie2010]

Can somebody explain their vision as to how Bitcoin(and scallability issue) will exist in say next 5-10 years?

As we know, currently there are only few transactions per second at maximum, the question is, HOW is it going to scale? Is the solution still just a myth? Or is it still an experiment and it may never scale? With LN you'll be able to transact "freely" once the funds are committed, but still a on-chain fee will have to be paid to open and close the channel...

So what's your vision in 5-10 years. Will bitcoin have 100k/tps scallability, or will it be too expensive to use for payments(and only usable as gold) and can never scale?

I agreed that scalability is one of the biggest challenge being faced by bitcoin as large volume can't be supported, that is why there we have been having recurrent hardfork hence SigWit has been activated which will invariably increases the speed in transaction capabilities.
More so, Lightning Network is another option if fully adopted will also increase transactions capacities all these will not take more one year to be fully adopted hopefully before the end of this year (2018).

[rbv]

There's a nice talk by Andreas Antonopolous on the current scaling issues of Bitcoin and that obvious solutions are not always the right ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AecPrwqjbGw I like his books and talks in general.

[technerd]

There's a lot in the works.
We already have Segwit that gives us a 50% increase.
Bech32 segwit transactions with standard 1 input, 2 outputs are already 38% less than "legacy" transactions.

Also, assuming everyone used Segwit, with the smallest block transaction type of 1 input and 1 output, the block would be able to contain 12.195 transactions / block compared to legacy transactions of the same size that will fill the block with 5,208 transactions.

There are also Schnorr signatures that allow for the signing of multiple inputs with just one signature.
This will bring about another 25% block size.
https://bitcoincore.org/en/2017/03/23/schnorr-signature-aggregation/
https://medium.com/@SDWouters/why-schnorr-signatures-will-help-solve-2-of-bitcoins-biggest-problems-today-9b7718e7861c

There's also mimblewimble, a radical bitcoin architecture change that gives total privacy, reduces blockchain size and increases performance.
https://scalingbitcoin.org/papers/mimblewimble.txt

And of course, the coup de grâce, the Lightning Network.
Everyone should be familiar with the lightning network and how it allows for quick, instant, transactions without having to confirm immediately on the blockchain, while yet leveraging the security of the blockchain itself.
https://medium.com/@subhan_nadeem/future-of-bitcoin-cc6936ba0b99

If you want to see how it works then get a testnet wallet here: https://htlc.me/
And buy a block of coffee at starblocks: https://starblocks.acinq.co/#/

If you want to do the whole thing by opening a channel then Download the eclair wallet from the Play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.acinq.eclair.wallet

Get testnet bitcoins here: https://testnet.manu.backend.hamburg/faucet

And top up at Bitrefill: https://lightning.bitrefill.com/steam-eur-voucher/

https://blog.bitrefill.com/test-instructions-lightning-on-bitrefill-ef6db8714b00

https://news.bitcoin.com/first-real-bitcoin-lightning-network-payment-completed-via-bitrefill/

Thanks for this. Great summary with links for further reading!

[MisterPrada]

Segwit has already been activated and will give Bitcoin ~2x capacity increase as adoption for this new type of wallet and addresses grows. You can track the adoption rate here: http://segwit.party/charts/ Once we reach 50+% we would have an effective doubling of transaction capacity.

Shnorr signatures. This basically combines multiple signatures into one, compressing the transaction sizes potentially by a large degree, especially if you lots of smaller ones coming in. Capacity increase is roughly ~25%+, in addition this will increase privacy. This can be implemented via soft fork.

Lightning Network is a second layer solution that will basically create an 'internet of payments'. It will allow organizations and individuals create payment hubs and channels which will find a route between sender and receiver like an email. This will increase transaction capacity 1000x, but it will require people to lock up their bitcoins in channels. On the plus side it will allow instant and virtually free transactions (no miner fees). This will free up on-chain capacity a lot because there are certain users who use the blockchain heavily with dozens of hundreds of transactions a day. These would all be moved to this second layer for speed and efficiency. This will come out later this year, but likely will take another year to materialize for a significant portion of users.

Rootstock is another second layer solution. It's basically a clone of Ethereum, that will be pegged to bitcoin. Rootstock will be able to have Ethereum level scaling (and smart contracts) promised to be ~2000 tx/second. This second level chain could serve as a checking or debit account for Bitcoin users, while the regular bitcoin will serve as their savings account. Rootstock has been promised to come out by the end of the year as well.
There are more projects, but I don't know enough about them to describe them. I hope somebody else can help me out...

[LoyceV]

And of course, the coup de grâce, the Lightning Network.
Everyone should be familiar with the lightning network and how it allows for quick, instant, transactions without having to confirm immediately on the blockchain, while yet leveraging the security of the blockchain itself.
https://medium.com/@subhan_nadeem/future-of-bitcoin-cc6936ba0b99

If you want to see how it works then get a testnet wallet here: https://htlc.me/
And buy a block of coffee at starblocks: https://starblocks.acinq.co/#/

I created two wallets, and can send funds from one wallet to the other. But when I try to buy a Blockaccino, it doesn't work:

With Bitcoin payments, I don't rely on one specific node to make a payment. If the Lightning Network relies on centralized nodes, wouldn't that make them easy DDOS targets?

The one good thing about Bitcoin is the comprehensive roadmap to adress the network capacity to handle more transactions and to plan for the future. They have been working on this for years and everything is tested and validated by Peer review.  https://bitcoincore.org/en/2015/12/23/capacity-increases-faq/

The Roadmap ends in 2017. A screenshot from that FAQ, the last sentence shows how far off their predictions have been:

Meanwhile they spend resources implementing RBF and CPFP, which wouldn't have been needed without capacity problems. When blocks are full, every transaction that gets a higher fee pushes out another transaction with lower fee, so RBF and CPFP are, in the end, only generating more revenue for miners.

I can't wait to see a solution though, and I can't wait for Bitcoin to claim back it's market share if that happens, but I'm afraid it's going to be too little too late if it takes much longer. I already use altcoins to transfer funds between exchanges, and I seen other people do the same.
USD can now be transfered through Tether (USDT), I was kinda hoping some exchange would create a similar side-chain for Bitcoin: a BTCToken that can be used to make transfers at very low fees. The exchange that creates them can easily proof it's funds by signing a message, and we can use cheap transfers again. I already trust exchanges with money, I could happily trust them a bit more if it means I can make cheap transactions again!

[jnano]

Meanwhile they spend resources implementing RBF and CPFP

With CPFP not exposed in Core's GUI, which is a pity.

I already trust exchanges with money, I could happily trust them a bit more if it means I can make cheap transactions again!

The erosion of expectations... why cheap and not free?

And yeah, the fee expectations at the end of 2015 look funny/sad now.

For those who don't see LoyceV's linked images (I didn't initially), the Core team had said about $0.75 or less in fees:

(We don't expect fees to get as high as the highest seen in this table; they are just provided for reference.)

And gave this example:

That is, if the fee for a typical 250-byte transaction is $0.01 USD, using segwit will save about $0.003 when spending a P2PK-in-P2SH transaction output.

[NobleNation]

Although we may be able to get by with these patches, the growing size of the 'replicated' ledger will eventually create elite mining communities who control the network, akin to the banking system of today.

As is, it will not be able to achieve what Cryptocurrency was designed to achieve - to supersede the flawed banking system, Cryptocurrency should achieve the following:
- sub-second transaction times
- sub-cent transaction costs
- practically infinite scalability
- controllable price stability
- control being democratically vested in the community
- simple and accessible interface to laymen

Bitcoin is unlikely to achieve this however many patches are made. We need to think anew and that is what we are creating at Noble Nation, as part of an integral solution for how nations should evolve in the future.

[jnano]

Cryptocurrency should achieve the following:

While those are nice goals to aspire to, I think most people would be perfectly happy with transaction times of a few minutes, and most special uses would be satisfied with a few seconds.

And scalability doesn't need to be infinite. Currently Bitcoin definitely needs a more immediate bump, but generally a gradual growth would suffice, as long as it doesn't lag much behind demand.

BTW: The social sharing box in your site covers the text on low resolution displays.

[hugeblack]

- Most of us will just wait till network back normally [from Jan till June].
-50% will use Segwit as a temporary solution [2018-2019].
- LN will be the final solution for scalability problem.

[LoyceV]

I already trust exchanges with money, I could happily trust them a bit more if it means I can make cheap transactions again!

The erosion of expectations... why cheap and not free?

I'm okay with "cheap". "Free" means they have no incentive to do it, or have alternative motives like advertising.

For those who don't see LoyceV's linked images (I didn't initially)

It takes a while to load, the forum is caching the images.

And gave this example:

That is, if the fee for a typical 250-byte transaction is $0.01 USD, using segwit will save about $0.003 when spending a P2PK-in-P2SH transaction output.

I really don't get Core's logic when it comes to fees. Just 3 years ago they expected people to try to safe $0.003 on fees, but now, while people pay up to 10,000 times more than that, they really want to stick to small blocks, dividing the community.

Although we may be able to get by with these patches, the growing size of the 'replicated' ledger will eventually create elite mining communities who control the network, akin to the banking system of today.

Diskspace is much cheaper than it was when Satoshi created Bitcoin, just as Satoshi anticipated.

Bitcoin is now like a bodybuilder skipping leg day: all money is invested in hashrate, and nothing in diskspace. Just one transaction adding 1000 bytes to the ledger costs about the same as a harddrive that can store the complete ledger many times. If I could choose between high fees and a large ledger, I'd instantly spend the money I safe on fees on a new disk drive.

- Most of us will just wait till network back normally [from Jan till June].
-50% will use Segwit as a temporary solution [2018-2019].
- LN will be the final solution for scalability problem.

If LN will really be a final scaling solution, it would lead to less onchain transactions when it's ready. From that logic, blocks could temporarily be bigger now, so Bitcoin can grow further until other scaling solutions are available.

[Stedsm]

- Most of us will just wait till network back normally [from Jan till June].
-50% will use Segwit as a temporary solution [2018-2019].
- LN will be the final solution for scalability problem.

If LN will really be a final scaling solution, it would lead to less onchain transactions when it's ready. From that logic, blocks could temporarily be bigger now, so Bitcoin can grow further until other scaling solutions are available.

Well then, what's the purpose for "not using" Bitcoin Cash and other forks too instead of waiting to get scaling issues resolved at Bitcoin's part? I'm literally not in support of all those "clones" of bitcoins, but then, if we're going to have an increased blocksize in the end, is there any meaning to wait? Why didn't we go for 2x itself? As well, though temporary increase in blocksize, how much time will it take? Can't lightning network prove to be the only solution we have all been waiting for, that could really deal with the global demand and transactions?

[Accessence]

Sooner rather than later it'll all come to the point of no return when there will be any option other than to take care of the scalability issue once and for all. It'll still be the bitcoin as we know it now, but with enough hash power supporting the change as to not create any more clones.

[LoyceV]

Well then, what's the purpose for "not using" Bitcoin Cash and other forks too instead of waiting to get scaling issues resolved at Bitcoin's part? I'm literally not in support of all those "clones" of bitcoins, but then, if we're going to have an increased blocksize in the end, is there any meaning to wait?

I've been wondering about this for a very long time. Core seems to be stuck on 1 MB, the argument is always that increasing block size isn't enough for exponential scaling, and although that's true, it would be a working temporary solution (just like the reduction from 32 MB to 1 MB was supposed to be temporary).
Using Bitcoin Cash doesn't solve the problem, I want to use Bitcoin.

Why didn't we go for 2x itself?

Ask Core

As well, though temporary increase in blocksize, how much time will it take?

I like Satoshi's suggestion (from 2010): just pick a block height, decide that blocks can be bigger from then onwards, and everybody who upgrades their Bitcoin Core will accept it. This should and could have been done long before scaling was an issue, and long before it divided the community.

Can't lightning network prove to be the only solution we have all been waiting for, that could really deal with the global demand and transactions?

I hope so, but I'll believe it when I see it.
If I open a LN channel with someone (as far as I understand LN now), I still have to pay Bitcoin fees to fund the channel. The person I'm trading with has to do the same, and either one of us can decide to close the channel, after which we both have to pay fees again. If fees are $10 (two times) to fund the channel, and you may still need several channels, I don't see total fees go down a lot anymore.
For a long time I made most of my transactions at tips on Rollin.io (until it closed). I'm totally fine with some level of centralization, and I'm totally fine with trusting some companies with small amounts to make many cheap small transactions. But, for that to work, everybody should use the same system, and currently the opposite is happening. We have more forks, altcoins and exchanges by the day.

[jnano]

I'm okay with "cheap". "Free" means they have no incentive to do it, or have alternative motives like advertising.

The block reward is still substantial, so miners have plenty of incentive. For the time being, anyway.

I really don't get Core's logic ... they really want to stick to small blocks, dividing the community.

I assume it's to make it easier for more nodes to handle the full blockchain, and hopefully maintain some level of decentralization. 200GB is already not a trivial amount of space (or bandwidth), nor is validating all of it. If it grows at 400GB per year (for 8MB blocks), who can tell what the implications will be?

If I could choose between high fees and a large ledger, I'd instantly spend the money I safe on fees on a new disk drive.

But is that the right comparison? I think most users don't want to shift money from fees to HDD purchases, they just want the save on fees part.

It takes a while to load, the forum is caching the images.

I know. It doesn't always work, and there's no placeholder, so it's not always obvious that an image was supposed to be there.

[Stedsm]

Well then, what's the purpose for "not using" Bitcoin Cash and other forks too instead of waiting to get scaling issues resolved at Bitcoin's part? I'm literally not in support of all those "clones" of bitcoins, but then, if we're going to have an increased blocksize in the end, is there any meaning to wait?

I've been wondering about this for a very long time. Core seems to be stuck on 1 MB, the argument is always that increasing block size isn't enough for exponential scaling, and although that's true, it would be a working temporary solution (just like the reduction from 32 MB to 1 MB was supposed to be temporary).
Using Bitcoin Cash doesn't solve the problem, I want to use Bitcoin.

Never said that using bitcoin cash would solve the problem, as more problems will evolve in BCH's system itself in near future when those taking 8 mb blocks will understand how hard will it be to keep up with the space. I still think there's something that's out of our reach, that one part that could solve all the problems in a shot and that's obviously not the block size.

Why didn't we go for 2x itself?

Ask Core

What about the devs who backed off themselves watching less support? Could have given a shot, eh?

As well, though temporary increase in blocksize, how much time will it take?

I like Satoshi's suggestion (from 2010): just pick a block height, decide that blocks can be bigger from then onwards, and everybody who upgrades their Bitcoin Core will accept it. This should and could have been done long before scaling was an issue, and long before it divided the community.

This one's quite reasonable, but instead of going for constant blocksize increase, can't they make such a code like if there are probably 1440 blocks getting mined in a 24 hour period, there should be a MEGABLOCK after xx number of blocks that will take those unconfirmed transactions at a stretch? Why don't they try to remove more data, though keeping up with the protocol to save the important part?

[LoyceV]

I really don't get Core's logic ... they really want to stick to small blocks, dividing the community.

I assume it's to make it easier for more nodes to handle the full blockchain, and hopefully maintain some level of decentralization.

I've thought about that too. At peak Bitcoin price and fee, miners earned about $40 million per day. I don't know the exact cost of running a node, so I make an estimate. Say $100 gets you a node running in some cloud hosting, that means miners earn enough money per day to setup 400,000 nodes for a month! At these numbers, an attacker (with only a fraction of the funds miners have) could easily setup much more malicious nodes than there are legit nodes, with or without a much larger blockchain.

200GB is already not a trivial amount of space (or bandwidth), nor is validating all of it. If it grows at 400GB per year (for 8MB blocks), who can tell what the implications will be?

That has always been the risk of storing all transactions in a blockchain.

Never said that using bitcoin cash would solve the problem, as more problems will evolve in BCH's system itself in near future when those taking 8 mb blocks will understand how hard will it be to keep up with the space. I still think there's something that's out of our reach, that one part that could solve all the problems in a shot and that's obviously not the block size.

Bitcoin Cash doesn't come close to filling it's 8 MB blocks. I kinda tend to believe the Bitcoin (Cash) network would just keep working fine if blocks would be that big.

This one's quite reasonable, but instead of going for constant blocksize increase, can't they make such a code like if there are probably 1440 blocks getting mined in a 24 hour period, there should be a MEGABLOCK after xx number of blocks that will take those unconfirmed transactions at a stretch?

You've lost me here, there are on averagte 144 blocks per day, not 1440.

[Stedsm]

Never said that using bitcoin cash would solve the problem, as more problems will evolve in BCH's system itself in near future when those taking 8 mb blocks will understand how hard will it be to keep up with the space. I still think there's something that's out of our reach, that one part that could solve all the problems in a shot and that's obviously not the block size.

Bitcoin Cash doesn't come close to filling it's 8 MB blocks. I kinda tend to believe the Bitcoin (Cash) network would just keep working fine if blocks would be that big.

How is it so? It's already getting its blocks with better sizes and it doesn't matter whether it gets those block sizes or not, as currently, I don't think they possess a number of users (audience) that bitcoin has, and I still think that even if people (ever think of) switch(ing) to BCH, it will also face the same issues, the only difference there would be that confirmations won't be a problem (if BCH is really able to handle those transactions and get those huge blocks for real) but the size itself will be.

This one's quite reasonable, but instead of going for constant blocksize increase, can't they make such a code like if there are probably 1440 blocks getting mined in a 24 hour period, there should be a MEGABLOCK after xx number of blocks that will take those unconfirmed transactions at a stretch?

You've lost me here, there are on averagte 144 blocks per day, not 1440.

Sorry about that, it's due to me using my mobile to comment here and it automatically used 1440 as number (that was used earlier) and I didn't notice, so didn't edit though. Still, what about my proposal of a MEGABLOCK to remove all this size stuff? A MEGABLOCK should be determined based on the size of total transactions remaining uncomfirmed in mempool, so that everyone will remain assured that at some point of time during a day, they will get at least one confirmation?