New world record 2 gigabyte block on Bitcoin SV blockchain paves future for Bitcoin mining with transaction fees as majority of block reward

ZUG, Switzerland, August 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- 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 a 2 gigabyte (GB) block was successfully mined on the BSV network - the largest block ever mined on a public blockchain.  The new world record was set at block height 700606 on August 16, 2021 at 15:20:11 (UTC), containing 1,999,941,397 bytes of data.  

Beyond its record-breaking size, the 2 GB block is notable for earning the winning miner substantially more in transaction fees than the current 6.25 coin 'fixed subsidy' amount of a Bitcoin block reward and shows how Bitcoin mining will remain profitable in the future by transitioning to 'transaction processing.'

The record-setting 2 GB block caps several weeks of rapidly accelerating growth on the BSV network.  Just 10 days earlier on August 6, 2021, the BSV blockchain set new landmarks (at the time) with the first of five 1 GB (1000 megabyte) blocks.  In comparison, the BTC network is limited to 1 megabyte blocks, which offer just a tiny fraction of data capacity in comparison. 

On BSV, the network capacity is not arbitrarily limited by protocol developers but can instead scale unbounded to meet market forces.  With user demand on the BSV mainnet growing, miners representing the majority of current hash power on the BSV network – led by TAAL Distributed Information Technologies - a public company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE: TAAL) - signalled intent to raise their block size 'hard cap' to 2 GB by August 13, 2021.  Other known BSV miners followed TAAL's lead.

Soon after, on August 16, 2021, a 1.247 GB block was mined on BSV (block #700597, at 13:38:50 UTC), a record-setting size for a short time. This was the first ever mainnet Bitcoin block above 1 GB in size and the first ever with transaction fees (6.33 coins) higher than the fixed subsidy amount (6.25 coins) for the block– for a total block reward of 12.58 BSV.  Less than two hours later, at 15:20:11 UTC on August 16, the new world record 2GB block was mined.  It provided 10.00 coins in transaction fees, adding 160% more than the fixed subsidy amount of 6.25 coins, for a total block reward of 16.25 coins to the winning miner. 

A day later, on August 17, the BSV network saw block #700737 added with 1.737 GB of data – providing 8.69 coins in transaction fees, 139% more than the fixed subsidy amount of 6.25 coins, for total block reward of 14.94 BSV.

With this shift to transaction fees capable of being the majority of a block's total reward, BSV has reached a landmark moment for the Bitcoin mining and transaction processing sector.  Satoshi Nakamoto designed a system limited to a total supply of 21 million Bitcoin, with 'fresh' coins distributed in a 'fixed subsidy' amount to the winning miner of every new block.  The subsidy amount began at 50 coins and halves approximately every four years to 25, to 12.5, now at 6.25 coins, and so forth until it becomes very small and eventually runs out.  Miners also earn the fees for every transaction contained in a block, so Satoshi intended for transaction fee revenue to increase over time to compensate for the decreasing fixed subsidy amount. This is only possible by scaling Bitcoin – as Satoshi intended - with bigger blocks that hold more transactions and data, all while maintaining low transaction fees to facilitate genuine use and utility. 

The recent gigabyte-sized blocks on the BSV are driven by increased user demand for bigger blockchain capacity. In particular, users of MetaID – a blockchain-based identity protocol built on BSV – and applications powered by its protocol, including ShowBuzz, are uploading many larger-size image files to allow consumers to own and control their own data, without risk of losing access to their valuable data if they are "deplatformed" or a social media service shuts down.  This leverages the permanency, cost-efficiency, interoperability and personal control characteristics of the BSV blockchain.

MetaID users are not alone in wanting a blockchain that can efficiently store and process more data.  Many other BSV applications across a wide array of sectors – including eSports, social media, digital advertising, AR, healthcare, data integrity and IoT – are demonstrating demand for bigger blockchain capacity.

The BSV network offers these capabilities at extremely high throughput rates - demonstrating 50,000 transaction per second throughput earlier this year during a live test.  It also offers 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].

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

"After years of watching Bitcoin crippled on the BTC network, we are thrilled to see BSV finally take Satoshi Nakamoto's vision to the next level with the recent wave of gigabyte size blocks.  The new world record 2 GB block and its substantial proportion of transaction fees demonstrate that the future lies in a blockchain that can meet users' demand for greater data capacity and miners' need to generate greater fee revenue.  That future is BSV, which is supporting real utility and real value, just as Satoshi always intended."

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

"Over on the BTC network, it took years of Bitcoin scaling battles to get nowhere and remain restricted at tiny 1 megabyte blocks that can handle at most 7 transactions per second.  But on BSV, it took less than a week for miners to see value in opening the door to 2 GB blocks.  While this sounds big, we're really just getting started on our journey towards terabyte – 1 million megabyte - size blocks so that BSV can process millions of payment and data transactions per second, and support the global population along with our one world Internet."

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

Past and future CoinGeek Conferences, the leading global events educating about BSV blockchain technology can be watched. The most recent was held in Zurich, the heartland of the European banking world; replays available. The next event is CoinGeek New York (Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel, October 5-7, 2021). Please join in person or virtually to discover how the BSV blockchain's unbounded scaling can support business, consumer and government uses with low fee data applications and micropayments.

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.