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SUMMARY:A Bigger and Faster Bitcoin: an Analysis of High-Rate Bitcoin Tran
 saction Processing - Aviv Zohar\, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
DTSTART:20131025T120000Z
DTEND:20131025T130000Z
UID:TALK48470@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Microsoft Research Cambridge Talks Admins
DESCRIPTION:Bitcoin is a potentially disruptive new cryptocurrency based o
 n a decentralized open-source cryptographic protocol. The Bitcoin network 
 consists of nodes who contribute their computational power to approve tran
 sactions. Transactions are approved in batches that are called blocks once
  every 10 minutes (in expectation). Transactions need multiple such approv
 als to occur before they can be considered irreversible with sufficiently 
 high probability. This implies a long waiting time for each individual tra
 nsaction (a typical transaction may wait for an hour or so).\nAdditionally
 \, blocks are currently restricted in size to 1MB and thus limit the avera
 ge number of transactions that can be processed per second.\n\nWe seek to 
 improve both the waiting time for transaction authorization and the number
  of transactions processed per second by lowering the block authorization 
 time to far below 10 minutes\, and by increasing the maximal allowed block
  size. We analyze the effects such changes would have on the security of t
 he protocol.\n\nUsing the typical block propagation time in the Bitcoin ne
 twork (recently measured by Decker & Wattenhoffer) our findings\, indicate
  that:\n1) At today’s transaction rates\, the waiting time for approval 
 can be significantly decreased with negligible compromise with regards to 
 the security of the protocol.\n2) Bitcoin’s ability to scale up to great
 er transaction volumes is inherently limited by the propagation delay in t
 he network. Our analysis allows us to derive estimates regarding this limi
 t.
LOCATION:Auditorium\, Microsoft Research Ltd\, 21 Station Road\, Cambridge
 \, CB1 2FB
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