Bitcoin SV “Quasar” Upgrade Successful, Block Size Expanded to 2GB

Bitcoin Satoshi Vision’s latest network upgrade called Quasar has been successfully updated.

16 blocks after 14:00, Bitcoin SV had a 145.7MB block, the upgraded node is following while the old node is stuck

The upgrade appears to have successfully workedhttps://t.co/T3h2rLCGpx pic.twitter.com/gqWm6VG1P5

— BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) July 24, 2019

The key protocol upgrade is focused on scaling, lifting the default block size “hard cap” on the network from the current 128 MB to 2GB (2000 MB).

#BitcoinSV is now configured to propagate blocks above 128MB (up to 2GB)! – First Quasar Block rolling in! 🥳https://t.co/q8820J8t7w pic.twitter.com/Lqer4OEYoY

— xl8 (@xl8junk) July 24, 2019

Initially, there has been some confusion over when the upgrade will initiate, reported BitMEX Research, the analytic arm of crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX.

BSV nodes are the ones that enforce the rules of the protocol and must reject any blocks that don’t match. If miners are not informed, they could start submitting invalid block that drains the efficiency and security of the network. So, this could be a problem.

However, the network has been upgraded and appears to be working successfully.

Bitcoin SV is expected to hardfork today at around 14:00 UTC. There appears to be some confusion over the exact timing of the upgrade, with https://t.co/BceJ4C07PY saying 13:00 GMT and the code appearing to say 14:00 UTC

Sources:https://t.co/Mjy60ZuvkHhttps://t.co/2sJcYgOL9r pic.twitter.com/7wB8iLMiZa

— BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) July 24, 2019

Significant Increase in the Network Capacity to allow BSV to compete with the VISA

Though the default maximum block size will be 2GB initially, a significant portion of miner hash rate will be set their hard cap manually to a lower level of 512 MB, still higher than any other competing Bitcoin project.

BSV can already handle over 300 transactions per second, but this capacity is expected to cross 1,000 transactions per second in the coming months after the Quasar network upgrade.

This level of capacity will allow the BSV network to compete with the VISA payment network capacity and further support enterprise applications.

Higher Rewards for Miners

As for the effect of this upgrade on Bitcoin miners, Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen explained, how after the next block reward halving in May 2020, the block reward subsidy will get reduced to 6.25 coins from 12.5. This will be further reduced to 3.125 coins.

“Miners need to be aware that massive scaling is critical for their profitability,” said Nguyen, especially after these halvings.

Hence,“for mining to remain profitable, miners need to earn more in transaction fees from each block to compensate for the lower block reward subsidy. This is only possible on BSV.”

He illustrated how,

“during a 21 May 2019 test on the BSV Scaling Test Network, a 1.42GB block was mined – which resulted for the first time in transaction fees which were more than the 12.5 coin block reward subsidy.”

Hard Fork has No effect on BSV Price

The hard fork meanwhile, is not having any effect on the price as it is still in the red by 3.65% in the past 24 hours, trading at $165.

While Bitcoin SV community is excited about this update,

Bitcoin SV ($BSV) plans a hard fork this week to increase the block size limit to 2 GB despite having a median block size of 120 KB (average block size = 400 KB), calculated over the period of one year.

Data and chart courtesy of @coinmetrics: https://t.co/1nv7W4VHXl pic.twitter.com/kGGoCNhkni

— Michel Rauchs (@mrauchs) July 23, 2019

Bitcoin and crypto enthusiasts’ are not feeling any good about it,

In 2 days BSV will hard fork to allow for 2GB blocks. There are people who think this can work and it’s a good idea.

— Peter McCormack (@PeterMcCormack) July 22, 2019

Another Upgrade “Genesis” will be released in early 2020

Bitcoin SV has another significant upgrade coming in the form of Genesis that will be released on February 4, 2020. This will focus on block size caps, removing all extraneous limits on script sizes and transaction sizes, sun-setting of P2SH, and limited support for the original sighash algorithm among other changes.