Blockchain upgrade helps avert split in Bitcoin

A software revamp will help address transaction limitations in the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin has managed to avoid being split into two separate currencies after its community reached an agreement to significantly upgrade the capabilities of its underlying blockchain network.

A compromise was reached between the developers behind Bitcoin and the mining community, which had become divided over how to improve the technology, with some fearing that the currency could be split into two different blockchain networks.

Miners of the cryptocurrency issued overwhelming support for a software upgrade known as the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 91 last Friday, which is the first in a series of steps attempting to address the processing limitations of the current blockchain network, according to Reuters.

One of the advantages Bitcoin has held over traditional currencies is its ability to process transactions almost instantly using a blockchain public ledger.

However, blockchain is currently only capable of handling 1MB of data added to it every 10 minutes, a limitation introduced to the technology to defend it against increasingly popular DDoS attacks, which otherwise could overload the system with multiple transaction requests and cause it to crash.

That limit means the blockchain cannot keep pace with the popularity of Bitcoin, however, which now requires millions of transactions to be processed each day, slowing the system down as a result.

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Source: Blockchain upgrade helps avert split in Bitcoin – PC & Tech Authority