New world record 1 gigabyte blocks mined on the Bitcoin SV blockchain

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ZUG, Switzerland – August 6, 2021 – Bitcoin Association, the Switzerland-based global industry organisation that works to advance business with the Bitcoin SV (BSV) blockchain and digital currency, today confirms that two 1 gigabyte (GB) blocks were successfully mined on the BSV network – the largest blocks ever mined on a public blockchain. The new world record was set at block height 699154 on August 6, 2021 at 13:34 (UTC); the block contained 999,959,302 bytes of data and was mined by TAAL Distributed Information Technologies – a public company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE: TAAL).

That world record block is the second time that the record has been broken in quick succession, following a block also earlier today at 04:04:11 (UTC) at height 699097 containing 999,743,208 bytes of data (essentially 1 GB). Today’s two GB size blocks surpass the prior record of 638 megabytes (MB), which was mined on March 14, 2021, also by TAAL Distributed Information Technologies.

TAAL’s world record 1 GB block contained 10,136 transactions, including a significant number of image files by users of MetaID – a blockchain-based identity protocol built on BSV. Those transactions generated a total of 5.09 BSV in transaction fees, adding to the 6.25 coin fixed subsidy awarded with each new Bitcoin block, bringing the total block reward generated from the record block to 11.34 BSV.

The substantial proportion of transaction fees generated by the record block reflects a trend that is important for the Bitcoin mining and transaction processing sector to remain profitable in the future. With the fixed subsidy amount per block halved approximately every four years (in the block reward halving events), miners must earn more in transaction fees to compensate for the increasingly lower fixed subsidy portion of the block reward. This is only possible through scaling the network with bigger blocks that hold more transactions and data, all while maintaining low transaction fees to facilitate genuine use and utility. This is how Satoshi Nakamoto designed Bitcoin to remain profitable for the nodes that are today called ’miners’ but will gradually shift to become transaction processors.

The world record block comes as the BSV network continues to demonstrate its diverse range of capabilities, both as an innovative and as a resilient technology. On August 3 and 4, the BSV network successfully repelled a trio of attempted illegal block re-organisation attacks.

Today’s record-setting blocks followed consecutive days that saw numerous large blocks processed on the BSV network, with 42 blocks exceeding 200 MB (including several in the 400-500 MB range) in the 48 hours preceding TAAL’s record block. Most of these big blocks were mined by TAAL and SVPool.  Transactions on the BSV blockchain originate from the array of businesses leveraging the diverse functionalities offered by the BSV network – including simple payments, tokens, social and digital media content, online game activity and timestamping records – in addition to the business and consumer data managed through the chain.

Earlier this year, the BSV blockchain surpassed BTC to become the most data-rich Bitcoin network, with the total data stored on-chain on May 16 reaching 352.9 GB (gigabytes) on the BSV network compared to 352.4 GB on the BTC network. Since that time, the BSV network has continued to extend that lead, increasing the amount of data stored on-chain to 494.99 GB compared to 358.07 GB on BTC as of August 6, 2021 (reported data from blockchair.com).

The continued growth of the BSV network is enabled by its unique ability to scale unbounded; with no limit on the default block cap size on its blockchain, the network dynamically adjusts the size of each block in response to market demand. As a result, the BSV network can offer the ever-growing data capacity required at extremely high throughput rates (the BSV network demonstrated 50,000 transaction per second throughput earlier this year during a live test) and at extremely low cost (the median transaction fee on the BSV network in 2020 was less than 1/50th of a U.S. cent [reported data from bitinfocharts.com]).

To learn more about the BSV blockchain and the array of businesses using its network, visit bsvblockchain.org.

Commenting on today’s announcement, Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen, said:

‘Following a week that started with the BSV network successfully repelling a trio of attacks by a malicious actor, it’s extremely rewarding to conclude it by seeing the network demonstrate its most important capability – scale. The ability of the BSV blockchain to scale unbounded and produce these massive, data-rich blocks, is the key to unlocking all-new economies and technologies. As more and more businesses awaken to the transformative potential of blockchain technology, the only way to reap the incredible benefits available is with incredible scale – and that incredible scale is only possible with BSV.’

Also commenting, Technical Director of the Bitcoin SV Infrastructure Team Steve Shadders, said:

‘The new record-setting blocks on the Bitcoin SV blockchain concludes a challenging week – one in which the network was called upon to demonstrate both its resiliency in the face of illegal attacks, as well as its progressive capabilities in producing these two behemoth 1 GB blocks. For us at the Bitcoin SV Infrastructure Team, however, this milestone is just another step towards achieving a much larger vision for Bitcoin, one in which 1GB blocks are seen as small, not record-breaking!’

Media Contact

Alex Speirs
Head of Communications
[email protected]

About Bitcoin Association

Bitcoin Association is the Switzerland-based global industry organisation that works to advance business on the Bitcoin SV blockchain. It brings together essential components of the Bitcoin SV ecosystem – enterprises, start-up ventures, developers, merchants, exchanges, service providers, blockchain transaction processors (miners), and others – working alongside them, as well as in a representative capacity, to drive further use of the Bitcoin SV blockchain and uptake of the BSV digital currency.

The Association works to build a regulation-friendly ecosystem that fosters lawful conduct while facilitating innovation using all aspects of Bitcoin technology. More than a digital currency and blockchain, Bitcoin is also a network protocol; just like Internet protocol, it is the foundational rule set for an entire data network. The Association supports use of the original Bitcoin protocol to operate the world’s single blockchain on Bitcoin SV.