Bitcoin SV (BSV) mines world record 103MB block on 10th anniversary of Bitcoin genesis block

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Bitcoin SV (BSV), the only blockchain continuing the original Bitcoin vision, has mined a 103MB block, the world’s largest ever on a public blockchain. The first to ever cross the 100MB threshold, the block was mined on January 3 at block height 563638 containing 460,400 transactions by Mempool, a mining pool based in China. Fittingly, the record-setting block was mined on the 10-year anniversary of the genesis block, which originated the Bitcoin blockchain. This latest scaling achievement confirms Bitcoin SV is on the correct path to becoming the world’s enterprise blockchain.

Emerging from the November 15, 2018 contentious hard fork of Bitcoin Cash, BSV is dedicated to preserve Bitcoin’s original design. Named for the “Satoshi Vision” of Bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin SV’s mission is focused: restore the original Bitcoin protocol, keep it stable, and allow it to massively scale. BSV aims to make Bitcoin the world’s new money used by billions of people, and the global public blockchain upon major enterprises can confidently build.

Unlike other blockchain projects, BSV continues to push the boundaries of massive on-chain scaling. In November 2018, a Professional Stress Test resulted in then-record size blocks mined using Bitcoin SV (at the time, an implementation of the Bitcoin Cash protocol). The test produced a 64MB block mined by CoinGeek Mining and a 38MB block came mined by SVPool, a personal initiative of nChain Chief Scientist Dr. Craig S. Wright. A month later, on Christmas day, Mempool mined a 65MB block. Now with a big leap to a 103MB block, Bitcoin SV continues to demonstrate its boundary-pushing potential.

These progressive results confirm that Bitcoin SV is correct to trust the Satoshi Vision with its scaling roadmap to build a blockchain suitable for enterprise usage. In contrast, Bitcoin Core (BTC) continues to restrict its block cap to a small 1MB (4MB capacity with SegWit) and has veered away from Bitcoin by introducing Segregated Witness and off-chain processing solutions such as Lightning Network. Likewise, Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCH/BAB) has made significant technical changes which also move away from Satoshi Vision and pursues a slower scaling roadmap than BSV.

The 103MB world record block was mined as the result of testing work done by Mempool in China. Mempool CEO and Co-founder Lin Zheming remarked:

“Mempool is committed to being a serious miner in the bitcoin ecosystem. From our testing work, we learn valuable information which will help the future of the bitcoin. We look forward to collaborating and compete with nChain, CoinGeek Mining, and others to achieve much bigger blocks and fulfill the Satoshi Vision for Bitcoin. Bitcoin SV is the only bitcoin implemented as described in the Satoshi whitepaper.”

For 2019, scaling work is the key priority for Bitcoin SV. Another Professional Stress Test is being planned for the near future, and hopes to demonstrate even greater throughput capacity for the BSV blockchain.

Scaling is critical to ensure miners remain profitable. Next year, the Bitcoin block reward will halve again from 12.5 coins to 6.25 coins; it will halve again every several years after that. For miners to stay profitable, they need to make up the lost block reward value through higher volumes of transaction fees. That means Bitcoin need much bigger blocks, to fit large numbers of increasingly diverse transactions beyond simple payments, such as token, smart contract and other data transactions. BSV provides the path for miners to generate more transaction fee revenue for years into the future.