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**Remote blockchain.**In the current implementation of the mainline client every client downloads and store a complete copy of the blockchain. This is the best way to boostsrap the bitcoin network while transaction volume is low. However at peak transaction volume most users will have no interest in downloading and storing TB worth of data. In the future if a client trusts an online entity they could query transactions against that client. Obivously this requires a level of trust so it would be important to choose a trustworth "block chain provider" however it has the advantage of each client only needing to query transactions they are interested in (for example client could ask for all transactions involving a particular address (to get current balance) or number of confirms for a particular transactions (to update the confirmation status). Before someone cries "centralization" there would be no official blockchain provider but instead numerous independent entities offering this as a service (either paid or free). If someone is paranoid they could use/build a client which queries two different block chain providers to ensure they return same data.

GPU Acceleration of transaction verification. GPU are currently used to find a hash to sign the block as this is cryptographically intensive and any speed up pays huge dividends. This isn't true for transaction verification; the bitcoind uses non-openCL CPU calculations to verify transactions. There is no reason for faster verifications because today transaction volume is relatively low. GPU would be able to handle a magnitude more transactions.

A rough estimation of future computation power required. The paper linked by author indicates it would take a modern CPU can only handle ~100 tps (transactions per second). For integer math (like used in cryptographic hashing) a high end GPU is (as of writing) roughly 20x as powerful as a high end CPU. That allows in the ballpark of ~2000 tps per GPU. Furthermore even with say 50% annual transaction volume growth we are two decades away from VISA level volume. Moore's law would indicate that average CPU/GPU in 20 years would be roughly 1000x as powerful. That would be on the range of 100,000 tps per CPU and 2 mil tps per GPU. Even if computational power slows it is not likely to be slower than the rate of transaction volume so likely over the next two decades despite growing transaction volume it will be possible for a single CPU (and eventually a single GPU) to verify all transactions.

Actual transaction volumes. Bitcoin is digital cash. Many people today chose not to use cash for online and offline transactions. It is probable that higher level payments systems will emerge (even possibly those based on credit worthiness) that work on top of bitcoin network. For users of these systems bitcoin would only be used for settlement of daily transaction volume (or monthly bills) between entities. This significantly reduces the amount of transactions necessary. As an example the average user may have 500 VISA transactions in a month but only makes a single payment. Likewise a company may have a thousands of VISA transactions in a day but recives that as a single payment. Another thing to consider is "VISA level" is more an end game scenario. A more likely interim goal (say over next 2 decades) would be a PayPal level transaction volume which despite being a modest 100 tps (vs VISA >4K tps) would indicate Bitcoin is a massive success.

Remote blockchain. In the current implementation of the mainline client, every client downloads and store a complete copy of the blockchain. This is the best way to boostsrap the bitcoin network while transaction volume is low. However at peak transaction volume most users will have no interest in downloading and storing terrabytes worth of data. In the future if a client trusts an online entity they could query transactions against that entity rahter than store the block chain locally. Obivously this requires a level of trust so it would be important to choose a trustworth "block chain provider" however it has the advantage of each client only needing to query transactions they are interested in (for example client could ask for all transactions involving a particular address (to get current balance) or number of confirms for a particular transactions (to update the confirmation status). Before someone cries "centralization" there would be no official blockchain provider but instead numerous independent entities offering this as a service (either paid or free). If someone is paranoid they could use/build a client which queries two different block chain providers to ensure they return same data. Lastly if a person is sufficiently concerned about security they could trust no-one and compute the entire blockchain themselves.

GPU Acceleration of transaction verification. GPU are currently used to find a hash to sign the block as this is cryptographically intensive and any performance increase pays huge dividends. This isn't true for transaction verification as transaction volume is low. As a result the bitcoind uses non-openCL CPU calculations to verify transactions. If necessary an Open-CL GPU powered client would be able to verify significantly higher transaction volume.

A rough estimation of future computation power required. The paper linked by author indicates it would take a modern CPU can only handle ~100 tps (transactions per second). For integer math (like used in cryptographic hashing) a high end GPU is (as of writing) roughly 20x as powerful as a high end CPU. That allows in the ballpark of ~2000 peak tps per GPU. Furthermore even with say 50% annual transaction volume growth we are two decades away from VISA level transaction volume. Moore's law would indicate that average CPU/GPU in 20 years would be roughly 1000x as powerful. That would be on the range of 100,000 tps per CPU and 2 mil tps per GPU in 20 years. Even if growth in computational power slows as long as it isn't slower than the growth in transaction volume it will ensure that all transactions can be verified by off the shelf hardware.

Actual transaction volumes. Bitcoin is digital cash. Many people today chose not to use cash for online and offline transactions favoring instead indirect payment methods (check, debit card, credit card, gift card, etc). It is probable that higher level payments systems built on top of bitcoin network will emerge. Users of these systems should cause significantly lower transaction volume. For an example lets look at how VISA transactions work. An individual may have 200 VISA transactions in a month but only makes a single payment to the card issuer (a 200:1 multiplier between purchases and actual currency movement). Likewise a company may have a thousands of VISA transactions in a day but recives that as a single currency payment (usually ACH). Another thing to consider is "VISA level" is more an end game scenario. A more likely interim goal (say over next 2 decades) would be a "PayPal level transaction volume" which despite being a modest 100 tps (vs VISA >4K tps) would indicate Bitcoin is a massive success.

We are a long way away from VISA level transactions however there are some methods for Bitcoin to deal with the data on the scale that is used by VISA (2K transactions per second).

Remote blockchain. Currently every client downloads a copy of the block chain. There is no reason for a client to store a copy of the blockchain IF there is an online entity they trust which has a complete copy of the blockchain. If transaction volume even got to 1% of VISA most clients would partner with a "block chain providers" possibly for a minimal monthly fee and simply query that provider about various transactions. Before someone cries "centralization" there would be no official blockchain provider but instead numerous independent entities offering a service of allowing fast and secure blockchain "lookups". If someone is paranoid they could use a client which queries two different block chain providers to ensure they return same data.

GPU Acceleration of transaction verification. GPU are currently used to find a hash to sign the block as this is cryptographically intensive and any speed up pays huge dividends. The bitcoind uses non openCL CPU to verify transactions simply because currently the required CPU load is much lower. The paper linked by author indicates it would take 50 modern CPU to handle VISA level transaction volumes. That stat is misleading. A high end GPU is roughly 20x as powerful as high end CPU for cryptographic hashing. Furthermore even with say 50% annual transaction volume growth we are two decades away from VISA level volume. Moore's law would indicate that average CPU would be more than 1000x as powerful a current CPU is today and a GPU in 20 year closer to 20,000x current top of the line CPU. In other words transaction volume will grow SLOWER than computation power. That combined with the ability to use OpenCL to acceleration transaction verification means the hardware will be a non-issue by the time transaction volume reaches that point.

Actual transaction volumes. Bitcoin is digital cash. Many people today don't like to use cash for online and offline transactions. As a result payment systems will eventually be built on-top of bitcoin and bitcoin will only be used for large settlements between providers. Thus even if bitcoin (and higher level systems) eventually reached transaction volumes equal to VISA the amount added to bitcoin blockchain would be significantly lower. Also the "VISA level" is more an end game scenario. A more likely interim goal (say over next 2 decades) would be a PayPal level transaction volume which is much more modest at a mere 100 transactions per second (vs 4000 for VISA).

We are a long way away from VISA scale transaction volume (>4K transactions per second) however there are some methods for Bitcoin to deal with the data on that scale

**Remote blockchain.**In the current implementation of the mainline client every client downloads and store a complete copy of the blockchain. This is the best way to boostsrap the bitcoin network while transaction volume is low. However at peak transaction volume most users will have no interest in downloading and storing TB worth of data. In the future if a client trusts an online entity they could query transactions against that client. Obivously this requires a level of trust so it would be important to choose a trustworth "block chain provider" however it has the advantage of each client only needing to query transactions they are interested in (for example client could ask for all transactions involving a particular address (to get current balance) or number of confirms for a particular transactions (to update the confirmation status). Before someone cries "centralization" there would be no official blockchain provider but instead numerous independent entities offering this as a service (either paid or free). If someone is paranoid they could use/build a client which queries two different block chain providers to ensure they return same data.

GPU Acceleration of transaction verification. GPU are currently used to find a hash to sign the block as this is cryptographically intensive and any speed up pays huge dividends. This isn't true for transaction verification; the bitcoind uses non-openCL CPU calculations to verify transactions. There is no reason for faster verifications because today transaction volume is relatively low. GPU would be able to handle a magnitude more transactions.

A rough estimation of future computation power required. The paper linked by author indicates it would take a modern CPU can only handle ~100 tps (transactions per second). For integer math (like used in cryptographic hashing) a high end GPU is (as of writing) roughly 20x as powerful as a high end CPU. That allows in the ballpark of ~2000 tps per GPU. Furthermore even with say 50% annual transaction volume growth we are two decades away from VISA level volume. Moore's law would indicate that average CPU/GPU in 20 years would be roughly 1000x as powerful. That would be on the range of 100,000 tps per CPU and 2 mil tps per GPU. Even if computational power slows it is not likely to be slower than the rate of transaction volume so likely over the next two decades despite growing transaction volume it will be possible for a single CPU (and eventually a single GPU) to verify all transactions.

Actual transaction volumes. Bitcoin is digital cash. Many people today chose not to use cash for online and offline transactions. It is probable that higher level payments systems will emerge (even possibly those based on credit worthiness) that work on top of bitcoin network. For users of these systems bitcoin would only be used for settlement of daily transaction volume (or monthly bills) between entities. This significantly reduces the amount of transactions necessary. As an example the average user may have 500 VISA transactions in a month but only makes a single payment. Likewise a company may have a thousands of VISA transactions in a day but recives that as a single payment. Another thing to consider is "VISA level" is more an end game scenario. A more likely interim goal (say over next 2 decades) would be a PayPal level transaction volume which despite being a modest 100 tps (vs VISA >4K tps) would indicate Bitcoin is a massive success.

We are a long way away from VISA level transactions however there are some methods for Bitcoin to deal with the data on the scale that is used by VISA (2K transactions per second).

Remote blockchain. Currently every client downloads a copy of the block chain. There is no reason for a client to store a copy of the blockchain IF there is an online entity they trust which has a complete copy of the blockchain. If transaction volume even got to 1% of VISA most clients would partner with a "block chain providers" possibly for a minimal monthly fee and simply query that provider about various transactions. Before someone cries "centralization" there would be no official blockchain provider but instead numerous independent entities offering a service of allowing fast and secure blockchain "lookups". If someone is paranoid they could use a client which queries two different block chain providers to ensure they return same data.

GPU Acceleration of transaction verification. GPU are currently used to find a hash to sign the block as this is cryptographically intensive and any speed up pays huge dividends. The bitcoind uses non openCL CPU to verify transactions simply because currently the required CPU load is much lower. The paper linked by author indicates it would take 50 modern CPU to handle VISA level transaction volumes. That stat is misleading. A high end GPU is roughly 20x as powerful as high end GPU for cryptographic hashing. Furthermore even with say 50% annual transaction volume growth we are two decades away from VISA level volume. Moore's law would indicate that average CPU would be more than 1000x as powerful a current CPU is today and a GPU in 20 year closer to 20,000x current top of the line CPU. In other words transaction volume will grow SLOWER than computation power. That combined with the ability to use OpenCL to acceleration transaction verification means the hardware will be a non-issue by the time transaction volume reaches that point.

Actual transaction volumes. Bitcoin is digital cash. Many people today don't like to use cash for online and offline transactions. As a result payment systems will eventually be built on-top of bitcoin and bitcoin will only be used for large settlements between providers. Thus even if bitcoin (and higher level systems) eventually reached transaction volumes equal to VISA the amount added to bitcoin blockchain would be significantly lower. Also the "VISA level" is more an end game scenario. A more likely interim goal (say over next 2 decades) would be a PayPal level transaction volume which is much more modest at a mere 100 transactions per second (vs 4000 for VISA).

We are a long way away from VISA level transactions however there are some methods for Bitcoin to deal with the data on the scale that is used by VISA (2K transactions per second).

Remote blockchain. Currently every client downloads a copy of the block chain. There is no reason for a client to store a copy of the blockchain IF there is an online entity they trust which has a complete copy of the blockchain. If transaction volume even got to 1% of VISA most clients would partner with a "block chain providers" possibly for a minimal monthly fee and simply query that provider about various transactions. Before someone cries "centralization" there would be no official blockchain provider but instead numerous independent entities offering a service of allowing fast and secure blockchain "lookups". If someone is paranoid they could use a client which queries two different block chain providers to ensure they return same data.

GPU Acceleration of transaction verification. GPU are currently used to find a hash to sign the block as this is cryptographically intensive and any speed up pays huge dividends. The bitcoind uses non openCL CPU to verify transactions simply because currently the required CPU load is much lower. The paper linked by author indicates it would take 50 modern CPU to handle VISA level transaction volumes. That stat is misleading. A high end GPU is roughly 20x as powerful as high end CPU for cryptographic hashing. Furthermore even with say 50% annual transaction volume growth we are two decades away from VISA level volume. Moore's law would indicate that average CPU would be more than 1000x as powerful a current CPU is today and a GPU in 20 year closer to 20,000x current top of the line CPU. In other words transaction volume will grow SLOWER than computation power. That combined with the ability to use OpenCL to acceleration transaction verification means the hardware will be a non-issue by the time transaction volume reaches that point.

Actual transaction volumes. Bitcoin is digital cash. Many people today don't like to use cash for online and offline transactions. As a result payment systems will eventually be built on-top of bitcoin and bitcoin will only be used for large settlements between providers. Thus even if bitcoin (and higher level systems) eventually reached transaction volumes equal to VISA the amount added to bitcoin blockchain would be significantly lower. Also the "VISA level" is more an end game scenario. A more likely interim goal (say over next 2 decades) would be a PayPal level transaction volume which is much more modest at a mere 100 transactions per second (vs 4000 for VISA).