[charlieyu1]

I thought base58 runs on 8 byte blocks because 58^11 is slightly larger than 256^8. Then I checked the spec and this is actually not a standard requirement.

[sedatk]

Haven't seen that, but how do you work with carry for numbers that are 256^8 < x < 58^11 ?

[charlieyu1]

If we cut off at 8 byte blocks every number would be < 256^8. Encountering x > 256^8 would simplify be invalid.

[sedatk]

In that case, there would be padding left in every encoded block. The size overhead would weaken the case for Base58 especially if you consider using it for arbitrarily long data.