Block Size

What Does Block Size Mean?

Block size in bitcoin refers to the size of a block of code representing a recent chain of bitcoin transactions. At a given point, a bitcoin block is added to other blocks to form a continuous chain, which facilitates the authentication of bitcoin transactions.

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Techopedia Explains Block Size

The current bitcoin block size is capped at 1 MB. To date, a flurry of new proposals, protocol rollouts, and debates have challenged the idea of keeping the block size at 1 MB, and floated the idea of upping the block size limit to 2 MB or above. A protocol called “Segregated Witness” or SegWit may eventually lead to block size increases. However, any block size increase would necessitate a “hard fork” or forced split in the bitcoin chain, which would break off a new cryptocurrency setup to be strictly delineated by its own participating community of users, miners and developers.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…