Bitcoin Unlimited Roadmap Includes Incentivized Network Nodes

Over the past few weeks, there is an increased interest in the Bitcoin unlimited development fork. As Bitcoin Core continues to work on its scalability solution, Bitcoin Unlimited secured funding for future development. The team has also released a brief roadmap of what will be in store over the coming months. Let’s see what this is all about, shall we?

Bitcoin Unlimited May Be The Solution

Although there are multiple forms of Bitcoin development going on right now, it is still too early to tell which scalability solution will work best. Most people tend to favor Bitcoin Core, as it has been the main brand of development for years now. But Bitcoin unlimited should not be discounted, as their new development roadmap makes some interesting propositions.

One of the more prominent ideas is to create economic incentives for people who run a  Bitcoin node. So far, this has not been possible yet, as running a node will not yield any financial gain for the users. At the same time, more decentralisation is needed, and economic incentives are not exactly needed either.

For now, the Bitcoin Unlimited incentive plans are still being fleshed out. The team is exploring different options, including node protocol payment channels. This would allow SPV Bitcoin nodes to open a payment channel with full nodes to retrieve accurate data. An interesting concept, but more details are required to cast a better judgement.

Another interesting idea is how the team will improve mining itself. By reducing the time miners are idle or not productive, the people who support the network with their dedicated hardware will earn more money. Right now, one unproductive millisecond per day costs miners US$1.5 on average. Although this is a very rare occasion, now is a good time as any to address it.

Other things to consider are future scalability. Sharding is mentioned as a possible outcome, a technique that is also being discussed among Ethereum developers. Sharding would effectively allow for unlimited scalability, which is something the Bitcoin protocol direly needs. Again, more fleshing out will be needed, though.

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