Old versions of bitcoin could not work at the current network scale

A study by BitMex Research showed that without improving the protocol and scalability of bitcoin, it would be impossible to synchronize the nodes with an existing network.

In order to verify the initial block loading time, the exchange team tested various variants of the Bitcoin Core software from 2012 to 2019.The experiment showed that all versions below 0.8.6 could not synchronize due to the increase in transaction volume that occurred from 2015 to 2016.

A group of researchers tried to run Bitcoin Core 0.7.0 on a PC with 32GB of RAM and an 8-core Intel i9 processor, but the downloaddata suspended on the basis for 2016.

According to the BitMex team, the experiment showed that without scalability improvements, Bitcoin would not be able to function even if users had the most advanced equipment.

Boot time in days.

Researchers say the most notablespeed changes occurred after Bitcoin Core version 0.12.0, which included a special signature verification library. However, they predict that in future technical improvements will lag behind the growth in popularity of the first cryptocurrency, so the boot time will gradually increase.

At the moment, the volume of the Bitcoin blockchain has reached 293.4 GB with an average block size of slightly more than 1 MB.

To improve scalability, developers are improving not only the core network, but also second-level solutions. Sidechains are rapidly gaining popularity and more than 9660 military-technical exchanges are already located in them.

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