[Recommend my two-volume book for more reading]:
BIT & COIN: Merging Digitality and Physicality
Scalability is widely misunderstood.
First, most people in the blockchain field do not understand what scale a blockchain must achieve in order to have any universal utility. Elon Musk thinks DOGE has real potential because it does 40 TPS, and others marvel when Solana pushes 50,000 TPS during tests (unconfirmed), but the fact is that real-world adoption requires TPS in millions and potentially billions. See: The Necessary Scalability of Layer-1 on Blockchain.
(And it would bring up a whole different matter to mention that blockchains such as Solana achieve larger scales by sacrificing Proof of Work consensus and reliability. See: Solana vs. Bitcoin SV)
Furthermore, people mistakenly think that, for UTXO-based blockchains, scaling is just a matter of allowing larger blocks. This has led people to believe that scalability is a non-issue in the longer term because, when necessary, BTC, BCH, DOGE, or any other variant of Bitcoin can easily remove block size restrictions to scale. See: Scaling is more than big blocks.
Teranode (see below) on Bitcoin SV will prove them all wrong.
Scaling is more than big blocks
Unlimited block size is only a necessary condition for scalability but not a sufficient one.
Scaling is hard because it requires every element or component of the entire system to be scalable. There are many such elements or components. Block size is just one of them. Others include node network propagation and synchronization, network architecture and communications bandwidth, and a variety of services to the user end, such as SPV (Simplified Payment Verification).
SPV, for example, is proven to be critical for any scaling beyond 100K TPS, and absolutely necessary when it reaches 1M TPS and beyond. BTC has done nothing on SPV, despite the fact that the Bitcoin whitepaper clearly described the importance and necessity of SPV. Not only that, but BTC has deliberately rejected the idea of SPV. On the surface, it does that because it believes SPV is unnecessary, but in reality, it does because it knows that SPV would kill BTC’s two-layer architecture from which the BTC Core (including Blockstream) derives its business model. The model has proven to be extremely lucrative on two simultaneous fronts: (1) pumping the BTC price using the digital gold narrative and (2) providing L2 services that profit because of, not in spite of, the disablement of the base blockchain.
Only BSV understands the importance of SPV and has further made an extensive effort to design and implement it.
Not just SPV. BSV has had a team of several hundred researchers and engineers, over $500 million invested over the last eight years, tens of millions of dollars spent on testing alone, and accumulated several thousands of patents, all focused on scalability. Implementation of SPV and the architecture of Teranode are among the fruits of this effort.
In contrast, all of BTC’s efforts on scalability have been on Lightning Network and Layer-2. It has made zero effort and investment in the Layer-1 scaling so far. In fact, all the BTC Core effort has been on denigrating Layer-1 scaling (because L1 scaling negates the base narrative-see above) while promoting an intentionally unscalable Layer-1 with the question of scalability shifted to Layer-2 solutions. I wonder how BTC is going to steer that train to turn 180°.
Besides, even if BTC overcomes all that and decides to do what BSV has been doing, will nChain license its patents to a repentant BTC?
Having been focused on anti-scaling for a decade or longer has consequences.
Teranode
For real scalability, Bitcoin SV has been building Teranode for years.
Teranode is a new infrastructure layer for Bitcoin that aims to achieve massive scalability while adhering to the protocol’s core principles. It introduces innovations like advanced queuing systems, improved transaction validation, and optimized communication protocols to handle high transaction volumes efficiently. Rigorous testing, iterative development, and enhancements to block propagation, memory management, and transaction processing have been conducted at the cost of millions of dollars during its early integration to iron out many issues.
A gradual transition to IPv6 and multicast support is central to Teranode’s design, enabling more scalable peer-to-peer communication. Dual-stack compatibility ensures stability throughout the migration, with full multicast capabilities planned by 2026. As Teranode matures, the occurrence of reorgs and related issues is expected to decrease significantly, ultimately leading to broader miner adoption driven by economic and operational benefits. The result will be a more robust, cost-effective, and globally scalable Bitcoin network.
After multiyear development, Teranode is getting ready for mainnet, with an official public release 1.0 scheduled for Q1/Q2 2025. When released, it will have the capacity of one million or more TPS. It will coexist with the current SV node during a transitional period, leaving the actual start of mining as a business decision for miners. But eventually, all miners will be expected to switch to Teranode.
[Recommend my two-volume book for more reading]: