Taking a different point a view towards a high BTC value and small blocks.
All that without a change to the ten minute blocktime of Bitcoin. By that I mean the Core developement, known by the BTC ticker. The one that will burst through the 6000 US Dollar ceiling any day soon. Also SHA256 POW {Proof Of Work} mining will stay the same. If wanted though the blocksize can be lowered down to 256 KB, or maybe even less. That probably is the last thing that will happen though. At one point I even wanted Core to go for 4MB blocksize, just to stop that weird B2X forking clone. It just made no sense to, just as it is another one grabbing almost 17 million Bitcoin and claim it is theirs to use. Giving it a huge marketcapacity even before it gets mined. Same trick like bcash did. You know the Bitcoin China {BCH} forking clone. The upsite of that forking clones business is that you can get free cryptos to sell, so you can buy realy valuable ones. Like BTC., for instance. But for now, let me leave that forking cloning thing for what it is. It is sidechain time.
Basicly it is, when simplified, easy to understand. Bitcoin {BTC} has a blockchain, that is unique, that started with the creation of a genesis block. The first one ever, somewhere in 2009. From that moment on every new created block got mathematicly intertwined with the previous one. That way one long strong chain of blocks was formed. And in these blocks are transactions of the BTC that got created with every new block. This is done in a proces called mining. The transactions are all there for everybody to see. It is a public open ledger. And there is a misconception that transactions can not be traced. It actually can be traced as all inputs and outputs are connected by unique addresses. But, those who use Bitcoin should be aware of this. One part of trusting the cryptographic mathematic system is because a transaction can be viewed. The trustless part is where there are no human intermediates involved that could be compromised. It is all about math.
It is a great smart way to securely send value from one account to another, no matter where it is on earth. If one is willing to pay a fee high enough to do so, otherwise it takes more time. This is because every block that is used in Cryptos has a limit. For Bitcoin that is about 1800 transactions to fit in one block, on average. With SegWit activated that becomes about for times as high. Not really that impressive. As this means going from about 3 transactions per second to 12. Where blockchains systems like Bitshares and Steem outrun that with ease. That is 3-2-1-DONE, there you go, another 3333 transactions in a three second block! Nothing can beat that, so far. The Steem and Bitshares network can handle an incredible amount of transactions per day. It is Steem and Bitshares lightspeed compaired to a Bitcoin turtle running. And they are cheeper too, with Steem doing ZERO cost on a transaction. Downside for those systems: you need to be a registered member on those blockchains.
No matter how BIG the blocks of Bitcoin get, there is still the ten minute blocktime. Bcash has 8MB blocks? Okay, that will make the blockchain 8 times bigger, for what. Well, 24 transactions per second, compare this to the 3333 per second of Steem and Bitshares and it makes no sense what so ever. At least to me it does not, at all. The b2x is even more weird. Using SegWit and going for 2MB blocks!? The blocksize for Bitcoin would have to be extremely huge to even get close to the power of Bitshares and Steem. For real day to day usage, for the people as some claim Bitcoin was ment to be. No, it was ment to be able to hold huge amounts of value in one BTC. So, even if bcash would get the most high valued one, it also would have very expensive transaction costs. Bitcoin is ment to hold a lot of value and does not need big blocks to move it about in every ten minutes.
One way to get passed this slow clockwise block production is to move small valued transactions out off it. To grasp how this works, or could work, is to see the current Bitcoin blockchain as the main one, or the mainchain. That one gets a new block added every ten minutes and can do, with SegWit, between 3 and 12 transactions per second. Because BTC is highly valued, almost 6000 USD and rising, a transaction will cost quite a bit. It is still possible to not pay any fee to the miners that handle the transactions, but they are not in it for free. Bcash miners won't be, nor will b2x miners. They have their costs of operation, investment costs and so on. Therefore it is a fees market. The higher the fee one is willing to offer, the faster a transaction will get into a block. But, because BTC is such a great value holder, only big transactions make sense. Paying a 6 US Dollar fee on a 5 cents transaction is just a waste. On a one BTC transaction it makes sense. For 60.000 USD value in a transaction it is even cheap. The more value in one transaction, the less of an issue the fee becomes.
Just getting higher blocks will not solve this concept. It is the way Bitcoin was constructed. And maybe that was not even a flaw in design. Securing high value transactions, worth billions maybe at some point in time, it is okay when that takes six confirmations, or an hour in time. And when looked at Bitcoin in that way it can be understood why some claim one BTC will have a value of 500.000 USD one day. Back to the mainchain, that will move these gigantic amounts of value back and forth within 1800 transactions a second at the most. Miners doing very well, even though no new BTC is created anymore. Their economic incentive to keep the main blockchain going is huge. The total transaction value on the mainchain could be trillions on a quite day. Small value transactions would even be considered the ones that sends a few thousand over the main blockchain. And that is where the sidechains come into play.
Imagine small transaction systems moving out off the mainchain and into a sidechain. This will releave the main Bitcoin blockchain from a lot of noise transactions. Take for instance a so called TIPS sidechain. For this a certain amount of Bitcoin will be locked into a SegWit address that is connected to the TIPS sidechain. Now these TIPS could have an extreme low value per TIP, not even thinkable to be send over the Bitcoin main blockchain. But, on the TIPS sidechain? Done in a jiffy! It could even use DPOS, like Bitshares and Steem to do so. In a restaurant you give TIPS using a special multi-wallet using NFC {Near Field Connection}. Some will use their TIPS to get some BTC, when they have enough. And maybe there is another sidechain that has a decentralized exchange where TIPS can be sold for Litecoin, Vertcoin or Digibyte. There is a lot that could be done using sidechains. Where the miners do not need to be bothered, they only need to get the main blockchain secured and going.
As far as I see it sidechains are the only reasonable solution for Bitcoin and Alts based on it to deal with blocks getting full. Small valued transactions might still be getting a chance to get on the main blockchain, but it will mean taking an extremely high risk. While using a sidechain for BitTips or BitFast transactions would releave the main Bitcoin chain. And at the same time serving for many others as a cheap and fast way to use Cryptos. Even one that is connected to a very expensive Bitcoin, the Core one, also known as BTC. To me this makes more logical sense than just creating one hardforked clone after another that raises blocksize. While draining value out off the real BTC. And I even would state that Sidechains are creating opportunities, while bigger blocks will just move things on in a conservative way. It just will not solve anything, as far as I see it.
Now the title was a kind of suggestive. But there are really those who think the main blockchain blocksize could become smaller. To me that is just the same kind of an idea as to double it and use SegWit. Just leave it like it is for now. And if sidechains do not releave the mainchain as expected, then use bigger blocks. As it looks like Bitcoin {BTC} is going to get more usage in a fast pace. Growing harder than maybe expected. And when sidechains make using Cryptos even more interesting than it could mean even a higher demand on the main blockchain too. But that is a bit like looking into a crystal ball right now. One thing is for sure, at least to me, Bitcoin is ment to hold very high value per BTC. That would make small value transactions just a waste in many ways. Especially when they pay no to small fees. To keep Cryptos available to every human on the planet, even the extreme valued BTC, sidechains will be the logical solution to make it possible.
Sidechains could make it happen.
image cc0 licensed by Geralt at Picabay
