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by nurb 3937 days ago
Instead of changing block size, why don't they change block time? 10/8 min instead of 10min, no latency issue, faster transactions, space for everyone, seems like a win-win?

Just need to adapt block reward and halving, it doesn't seem to be a big deal since every others altcoins plays with these parameters.

Or am I missing something?

3 comments

That raises orphan rates: https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinxt/comments/3jziu5/satoshi_c...

For "faster transactions", even a 10/8 min is too long and people would still have to rely on mempool transactions. It doesn't raise the security because the proof of work is still the same.

Latency is one of the problems with regards to creating an economy of scale and centralization. It may actually work better to increase the block size by having 3MB blocks with 20 minute intervals or 1 hour blocks with 20MB caps, though that also has some centralizing pressures in increasing the full node expenses and may even result in latency-blocktime ratio increasing. There also is of course the problem of confirmations being inconvenient with 1 hour blocks.
It increases orphan rates but more importantly is an unscalable solution.