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Author Topic: Question about block generation  (Read 1108 times)
Tawsix (OP)
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April 22, 2011, 08:07:38 AM
 #1

I am wondering why blocks are generated only once every 10 or so minutes.  Why not halve or quarter the time it takes to generate a block and lower the reward by the same amount so that transactions can be confirmed faster?  I feel like the confirmation of transactions is currently the weakest part of bitcoins, and that it makes them extremely inconvenient if they ever become a currency used in real life transactions.

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The Bitcoin network protocol was designed to be extremely flexible. It can be used to create timed transactions, escrow transactions, multi-signature transactions, etc. The current features of the client only hint at what will be possible in the future.
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Raulo
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April 22, 2011, 08:35:45 AM
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It is arbitrary but it is a reasonable tradeoff between confirmation time and network consistency. If the blocks were created every minute or so, there will be a lot of "collisions", situations where blocks are created at almost the same time that result in the chain fork. Now, the chain forks are rare.

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April 22, 2011, 12:29:49 PM
 #3

A Paypal transaction takes 6 months to confirm.

That I call extremely inconvenient.

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